THOMAS  BEWICK  AND  HIS  PUPILS 


< 


"  He  would  often  professe  that  to  observe  the  grasse, 
herbs,  corne,  trees,  cattle,  earth,  waters,  heavens,  any  of 
the  Creatures,  and  to  contemplate  their  Natures,  orders, 
qualities,  vertues,  uses,  etc.,  was  ever  to  him  the  greatest 
mirth,  content,  and  recreation  that  could  be  :  and  this 
he  held  to  his  dying  day." 

Life  and  Death  of  Bishop  Andrewes,  1650. 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 
(After  Portrait  by  James  Ramsay.) 


Frontispiece. 


THOMAS  BEWICK 

AND  HIS  PUPILS 


BY 

AUSTIN  DOBSON 


WITH  NINETY-FIVE  ILLUSTRATIONS 


JAMES  R. 


BOSTON 
OSGOOD  AND 
1884 


COMPANY 


TO 

W.  J.  LINTON, 

ENGRAVER  AND  POET, 
THE  STEADFAST  APOSTLE  OF  BEWICK'S  "  WHITE  LINE," 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED. 


PREFACE 


Except  to  explain  its  appearance,  there  is  little 
need  of  preface  to  the  present  volume.  It  is,  for 
the  most  part,  a  reprint  of  two  articles  on  Bewick 
and  his  pupils,  prepared  in  1881-82  for  the  New 
York  l'  Century  Magazine."  That  on  Bewick, 
when  illustrated,  was  found  to  be  too  long  for 
publication  in  one  number.  An  entire  section 
devoted  to  John  Bewick  was  consequently  omitted, 
and  other  retrenchments  were  effected.  In  this 
reissue,  the  portions  withdrawn  are  restored ;  and 
sitch  corrections  and  additions  as  a  writer  usually 
makes  in  the  case  of  a  paper  republished  some  time 
after  it  was  written,  have  been  inserted.  The 
account  of  the  Pupils,  which,  when  first  printed, 
was  not  abridged,  has  not  now  been  materially 
altered.     In  both  cases  it  would  obviously  have 


viii 


PREFACE. 


been  easy  to  further  extend  and  amplify.  But 
though  something  might  have  been  gained  in 
substance,  more  would  have  been  lost  in  symmetry, 
while  the  general  result  would  remain  unchanged. 

To  have  written  too  little  on  a  subject,  moreover, 
is  scarcely  a  fatdt, — nay,  in  this  particular  instance 
it  may  almost  be  claimed  as  a  merit.  Few  men 
have  suffered  as  much  as  Thomas  Bewick  from 
that  kind  of  admiration  in  which  enthusias?n  plays 
a  far  larger  part  than  judgment.  Over  most 
of  his  earlier  work,  and  over  all  his  inferior  work, 
Oblivion,  without  accusation  of  blindness,  might 
advantageously  "  scatter her  poppy  and  the  plain- 
spoken  philosopher  of  Gateshead,  who  had  no  desire 
"  to  feed  the  whimsies  of  the  bibliomanists,"  would 
have  heartily  concuwed  in  any  such  arrange- 
ment. What  is  most  dwable  in  Bewick,  as  it 
appears  to  those  who  prize  himjtidiciously,  is  Bewick 
himself, — always  provided  that  Bewick  himself  is 
attainable.  Since  he  first  restored  it  in  England 
a  hundred  years  ago,  the  art  of  wood -engraving 
has  considerably  progressed.  As  an  Engraver 
pure  and  simple,  many,  including  some  of  his  pupils, 


PREFACE. 


ix 


have  rivalled  him  in  mechanical  dexterity  of  line 
and  mere  manipulative  skill  Bttt  as  an  Artist 
and  Naturalist,  copying  Nature  with  that  loving 
awe  which  fears  to  do  her  wrong  by  the  slightest 
deviation  from  the  truth,  —  as  a  Hu7nourist  and 
Satirist,  criticising  life  with  the  clear  vision  of 
independent  common  sense, — his  gifts  are  distinctly 
"non-transferable"  They  are  at  their  best  in  his 
best  work  ;  and  it  is  on  his  best  work  that  I  have 
most  willingly  lingered  in  these  pages,  frankly 
neglecting  his  less  individual  efforts.  In  the  words 
of  Chaucer's  Man  of  Law — 

"  Me  list  not  of  the  chaf  ne  of  the  stre 
Maken  so  long  a  tale,  as  of  the  corn" 

It  remains  for  me  to  put  on  record  what 
obligations  I  have  incm^red  in  my  task.  To  the 
Editors  of  the  "  Century  Magazine','  who,  under 
great  difficulties,  spared  no  pains  to  illustrate  my 
text  effectively,  my  first  and  best  thanks  are  due. 
To  my  friend  Mr.  J.  W.  Barnes  of  Durham, 
who  has  throughout  aided  and  encouraged  me 
in  the  kindest  way,  I  ca7inot  but  feel  espe- 
cially indebted.     To  Messrs.  E.  and  J.  W.  Ford 


X 


PREFACE. 


of  Enfield,  to  Mr,  T.  W.  U.  Robinson  of 
Houghton-le-Spring,  to  Mr.  G.  P.  Boyce,  to  Mr. 
Frederick  Locker,  Mr.  F.  Har grave  Hamel,  and 
Mr.  J.  Waddon  Martyn  I  am  grateful  for 
valuable  assistance ;  as  also  to  Messrs.  Harper  of 
New  York,  Messrs.  Cassell  &  Co.,  and  Messrs. 
Griffith  and  Farran,  by  whose  courtesy  I  have 
been  able  to  increase  the  number  of  my  illustra- 
tions. Lastly,  to  my  English  publisher,  Mr. 
Andrew  Chat  to,  who,  though  my  investigations 
have  taught  me  to  differ  in  some  trifling  details 
from  the  too-little  recognised  labours  of  his  father, 
itevertheless  placed  his  father  s  notes  at  my  dis- 
posal ;  and  to  Mr.  Robert  Robinson  of  Newcastle, 
who,  having  himself  a  long-desired  book  on  Bewick 
in  preparation,  did  not  on  that  account  regard  me 
as  a  wolf  in  sheep ' s  clothing,  L  hereby  tender  my 
sincere  acknowledgments. 

AUSTIN  DOB  SON 


Porth-y-Felin,  Ealing,  W. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

Introductory        .......  i 

CHAPTER  II. 
Bewick's  Boyhood  .......  9 

CHAPTER  III. 
Apprenticeship      .       .       .       .       .       .  -25 

CHAPTER  IV. 
"  Wanderjahre  "    .......  39 

CHAPTER  V. 
"  Gay's  Fables,"  "  Select  Fables  "  ....  50 

CHAPTER  VI. 
John  Bewick         .       .       .       .       .       .  .70 


xii 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

"  Quadrupeds,"  "  Birds  "        .....  87 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Tailpieces      .       .       .       .       .       .  .108 

CHAPTER  IX. 
"^Esop's  Fables,"  Bewick's  Death         .        .       .  133 

CHAPTER  X. 
Charlton  Nesbit  .       .       .       .       .       .  .171 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Luke  Clennell      .       .        .       .       .        .  .186 


CHAPTER  XII. 
Harvey,  Jackson,  etc.  . 


206 


LIST  OF 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Thomas  Bewick.  After  portrait  by  James  Ramsay  Frontispiece 

Sir  Bevis  of  Hampton.    From  a  Newcastle  chap-book 

of  1690  .........  3 

Cherryburn  House.    From  a  Photograph      .  To  face  9 

Queen  Elizabeth.    From  a  Chap-book  printed  by  John 

White  of  Newcastle  15 

Ovingham  Parsonage.     From  a  Photograph   .         To  face  2  5 

St.  Nicholas's  Church.    From  Hutton's  "  Mensuration," 

1770  •        •  -3° 

Tailpiece.  From  Ferguson's  u  Poems,"  18 14  .  .  38 
Tailpiece.  From  Ferguson's  "  Poems,"  18 14  .  .  .  49 
The  Hound  and  the  Huntsman.  From  "  Gay's  Fables," 

1779   •       .  -53 

The  Fox  and  the  Goat.  From  Sebastian  le  Clerc  .  61 
The  Viper  and  the  File.  From  CroxalPs  "  Fables,"  1722  62 
The  Viper  and  the  File.    From  "  Select  Fables,"  1784  .  63 

The  Young  Man  and  the  Swallow.    From  "  CroxalPs 

Fables,"  1722  ........  64 


XIV 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  Young  Man  and  the  Swallow.    From  "  Select 

Fables,"  1784  .        .        .        .  .        .  .65 

The  Eagle  and  the  Crow.    From  "  Select  Fables,"  1784  67 

Tailpiece.    From  Ferguson's  "  Poems,"  1814  .        .        .  69 

Robin  Hood  and  Maid  Marian.    From  Ritson's  "  Robin 

Hood,"  1795    ...       r-      ....  73 

Robin  Hood  and  Little  John.    From  Ritson's  "  Robin 

Hood,"  1795  74 

The  Death  of  Robin  Hood.    From  Ritson's  "  Robin 

Hood,"  1795  76 

The  Recompense  of  Virtue.    From  the  "  Blossoms  of 

Morality,"  1796       .        .        .        .  .  .77 

The  Hermit.    From  "  Poems  by  Goldsmith  and  Parnell," 

1795       .        .        .        .        .        .        .  To  face  79 

Robin  Hood  and  Little  John.    From  Ritson's  "  Robin 

Hood,"  1795    ........  79 

Domestic  Scene.    From  a  block  by  John  Bewick,  source 

unknown  .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  .81 

Little  Anthony.     From  the  "  Looking  -  Glass  for  the 

Mind,"  1792  82 

The  Sad  Historian.    From  "  Poems  by  Goldsmith  and 

Parnell,"  1795  To  face  83 

Leonora  and  Adolphus.    From  the  "  Looking-Glass  for 

the  Mind,"  1792  85 

Tailpiece.    From  Ritson's  "  Robin  Hood,"  1795      .       .  86 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


XV 


PAGE 

The  Chillingham  Wild  Bull.    Reduced  from  the  block 

of  1789  To  face  89 

The  Ounce.    From  the  "  Quadrupeds,"  1790   .       .  .92 

The  Old  English  Hound.   From  the  "  Quadrupeds,"  1790  95 

The  Common  Boar.    From  the  "  Quadrupeds,"  1790       .  96 

The  Starling.    From  the  "Land  Birds,"  1797       .       .  97 

The  Yellow  Hammer.    From  the  "  Land  Birds,"  1797    .  100 

The  Short-eared  Owl.    From  the  "Land  Birds,"  1797  .  101 

The  Egret.    From  the  "  Water  Birds,"  1804  .        .  .102 

The  Common  Snipe.    From  the  "Water  Birds,"  1804     .  103 

The  Tawny  Owl.    From  the  "  Land  Birds,"  1797   .  .104 

"  Grace  before  Meat."    From  the  "  Water  Birds,"  1804  107 

A  Farmyard.    From  the  "  Land  Birds,"  1797         .  .111 

Poachers  Tracking  a  Hare  in  the  Snow.    From  the 

"  Land  Birds,"  1797         .        .        .        .        .  .112 

Tailpiece  to  the  "  Reindeer."    From  the  "Quadrupeds," 

1791  ll4 

Tailpiece  to  the  "Woodchat."     From   the  "Land 

Birds,"  1797  115 

Tailpiece  to  "  Common  Cart-Horse."  From  the  "Quad- 
rupeds," 1 79 1  .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .116 

Tailpiece  to  the  "Jay."  From  the  "  Land  Birds,"  1797  1 17 
Kite-Flying.  From  the  "Water  Birds,"  1804  .  .118 
Tailpiece  to  the  "  Curlew."    From  the  "Water  Birds," 

1804  119 


xvi 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

Tailpiece  to  the  "  Baboon."    From  the  "  Quadrupeds," 

1791  120 

Tailpiece  to  the  "  Watercrake."    From  the  "  Water 

Birds/'  1804    .        .       .        .        .        .        .  .121 

Tailpiece  to  the  "  Missel  Thrush."    From  the  "  Land 

Birds,"  1797  121 

Tailpiece   to   the   "  Shetland   Sheep."     From  the 

"  Quadrupeds,"  1791        ......  122 

Tailpiece  to  the  "  Arctic  Gull."    From  the  u  Water 

Birds,"  1804    .        .        .        .        .        .        .  .123 

Bewick  Drinking  out  of  his  Hat.    From  the  Ci  Land 

Birds,"  1797    .        .        .        .        .        .        .  .125 

Tailpiece  to  the  "  Red-legged  Crow."     From  the 

"  Land  Birds,"  1797         .        .        .        .        .        .  126 

Memorial  Cut  to  Robert  Johnson.     After  Charlton 

Nesbit    .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .131 

Bust  of  Bewick.  After  E.  H.  Baily,  R.A.  .  To  face  133 
The  Fox  and  the  Goat.  From  Croxall's  "Fables,"  1722  136 
The  Fox  and  the  Goat.  From  "  Fables  of  ^sop,"  1818  137 
Headstone  Tailpieces.  From  "Fables  of  ^Esop,"  18 18  139 
The  Alarm.  Intended  for  "Fables  of  ^sop,"  18 18  .142 
Bewick's  Workshop.  From  a  Photograph  .  .  .150 
Ovingham  Church.  From  a  Photograph  .  To  face  1  56 
Bay  Pony.    From  the  "  Sportsman's  Friend,''  180 1   .  .168 

Bewick's  Thumb-Mark.    From  the  Receipt  for  "  Fables 

of  ^sop,"  18 1 8        .        .        .        .        .        .  .170 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

St.  Nicholas's  Church.    After  Robert  Johnson      .  .176 

The  Call  to  Vigilance.    From  Ackermann's  "  Religious 

Emblems,"  1809      .        ....        To  face  178 

The   Daughters  of  Jerusalem.     From  Ackermann's 

"  Religious  Emblems,"  1809      .       , .        .        To  face  180 

In  the  Stocks.    From  Butler's  "  Hudibras,"  181 1    .  .183 

The  Self-Important.    From  Northcote's  "Fables,"  1828  184 

The  Cock,  the  Dog,  and  the  Fox.    From  Northcote's 

"  Fables,"  1833       .        .        .        .        .        .  .185 

Ship  in  a  Gale.  From  Falconer's  "  Shipwreck,"  1808.  To  face  1 89 

Diploma  of  the  Highland  Society.    After  Clennell's  cut  191 

Headpiece  after  Stothard.    From  Rogers's  "  Pleasures 

of  Memory,"  18 10    .        .  .        .        .  .192 

Headpiece  to  Clennell's  Verses.    From  the  original 

leaflet      .        .       .       .        .       .        .        .        .  203 

Part  of  Haydon's  "  Dentatus."    From  Harvey's  engrav- 
ing, 1 82 1         .        .        .        .        .        .        To  face  207 

Initial  Letters.    From  Henderson's  "  History  of  Wines," 

1824       .........  208 

Headpiece.      From  Henderson's    "  History    of  •  Wines," 

1824       .        .        .        .        .        .        .        To  face  208 

The  Egret.    From  a  Drawing  by  Harvey        .        .        .  209 

The  Jaguar.    From  the  "  Tower  Menagerie,"  1828  .        .  210 

Maaroof  Bidding  Farewell  to  his  Wife.    From  the 

"Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  1840  .        .        To  face  211 


XVlll 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

The  Great  Eagle  Owl.    From  the  "  Gardens  and  Men- 
agerie of  the  Zoological  Society,"  1 83 1        .        .  .212 

Gardens  on  the  River  of  El-Ubulleh.    From  the 

"Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  1840    .        .        To  face  213 

Party  Quarrels.    From  Northcote's  "Fables,"  1833      .  213 

The  Second  Sheykh  Receiving  his  Poor  Brother. 

From  the  "Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  1840     To  face  215 

The  Fox,  the  Weasel,  and  the  Rabbit.    From  North- 
cote's "Fables,"  1828  217 

The  Woodcock,  after  Bewick.    From  the  "  Treatise  on 

Wood-Engraving,"  1839    .        .        .        .        .  .218 

The  Partridge,  after  Bewick.    From  the  "  Treatise  on 

Wood-Engraving,"  1839.        .        .        .        .  .219 

The  Vain  Butterfly.    From  Northcote's  "Fables,"  1833  220 

Seed  Sown.    From  Ackermann's  "  Religious  Emblems," 

1809       .......        To  face  221 

Tailpiece.    From  Northcote's  "  Fables,"  1828         .        .  222 

Common  Duck.    From  the  "  Three  Hundred  Animals," 

1 8 1 9  .       .       .  .        .       .       .  227 

Tailpiece.    From  Northcote's  "  Fables,"  1828         .       .  228 

[  The  above  illustrations  are  from  (i)  copies  on  the  wood,  (2)  copies  by  process,  and 
(3)  electrotypes  from  the  original  blocks.  The  majority  have  appeared  in  the 
"  Century  Magazine""  and  Chatto's  "  Treatise  on  Wood-Engraving."  The 
photographs  used  were  taken,  under  the  authors  stcperintendence,  by  Messrs. 
Downey  of  Newcastle.  \ 


THOMAS  BEWICK  &  HIS  PUPILS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

During  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth  century 
engraving  on  wood  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
flourished  in  England.  It  existed — so  much  may 
be  admitted — but  it  existed  without  recognition 
or  importance.  In  the  useful  little  "  Etat  des 
Arts  en  Angleterre,"  published  in  1 755  by  Rouquet 
the  enameller, — a  treatise  so  catholic  in  its  scope 
that  it  includes  both  cookery  and  medicine, — there 
is  no  reference  to  the  art  of  wood-engraving.  In 
the  "  Artists  Assistant/'  to  take  another  book 
which  might  be  expected  to  afford  some  informa- 
tion, even  in  the  fifth  edition  of  1 788,  the  subject 
finds  no  record,  although  engraving  on  metal, 


2 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


etching,  mezzotinto- scraping — to  say  nothing  of 
"  painting  on  silks,  sattins,  etc." — are  treated  with 
sufficient  detail.    Turning  from  these  authorities 
to  the  actual  woodcuts  of  the  period,  it  must  be 
confessed  that  the  survey  is  not  encouraging. 
With  the  almost  solitary  exception  of  the  illustra- 
tions in  Croxall's  "  Fables  of  ^Esop,"  to  which  we 
shall  hereafter  revert,  the  "  wooden  engravings" 
which  decorate  books  are  of  the  most  "  stale,  flat, 
and  unprofitable  "  description.    The  majority  con- 
sist of  tasteless   emblematical   ornaments  and 
"  culs-de-lampe,"  or  coarse  headpieces,  such  as 
that  which  Hogarth  is  said  to  have  designed  in 
1747  for  the  "  Jacobite's  Journal"  of  Fielding. 
Among  efforts  on  a  larger  scale,  the  only  examples 
which  deserve  mention  are  the  last  two  plates  of 
the  same  artist's  "  Four  Stages  of  Cruelty,"  en- 
graved by  J.  Bell  in  1750.    These,  drawn  boldly 
on  the  plank  by  Hogarth  himself,  and  cut  with  the 
knife  in  rough  effective  facsimile,  deserve  to  be 
better  known,  as,  besides  variations,  they  possess 
an  initial  vigour  of  execution  which  is  lost  in  the 
subsequent  coppers.    It  was  with  a  view  to  bring 


I.] 


INTRO  D  UCTOR  Y. 


3 


the  lesson  of  his  sombre  designs  within  the  range 
of  the  poorest  classes  that  Hogarth  had  in  this 
case  selected  wood  ;  but  the  method  was  judged 
upon  trial  to  be  more  expensive  than  metal.  Such 


SIR  BEVIS  OF  HAMPTON.     (FROM  A  NEWCASTLE  CHAP-BOOK  OF  1690.) 


as  it  was,  nevertheless,  the  real  field  of  wood- 
engraving  during  the  greater  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  lay  among  those  humbler  patrons  of  art 
and  literature  to  whom  he  desired  to  appeal.  It 
was  to  be  found  in  the  rude  prints  and  broad- 


4  THOMAS  BEWICK.  [chap. 


sides  then  to  be  seen  displayed  in  every  farm  and 
cottage — patriotic  records  of  victories  by  sea  and 
land,  portraits  of  persons  famous  or  notorious, 

" — ballads,  pasted  on  the  wall, 
Of  Chevy  Chace,  and  English  Moll, 
Fair  Rosamond,  and  Robin  Hood, 
The  little  Children  in  the  Wood." 

Homely  mural  decorations  of  this  kind,  familiar 
to  Swift  in  the  first  years  of  the  century,  were,  sixty 
years  later,  equally  familiar  to  Goldsmith  ;  and  it 
was,  doubtless,  from  some  such  gallery  that  honest 
Farmer  Flamborough  or  the  "  blind  piper"  de- 
lighted the  simple  audience  at  Dr.  Primrose's  with 
"  Johnny  Armstrong's  Last  Good  Night,"  or  the 
"  Cruelty  of  Barbara  Allen."  But  the  execution 
of  these  modest  masterpieces  was  obviously  of  the 
most  cheap  and  rudimentary  kind,  so  that,  taking 
the  woodcut  art  of  the  period  as  a  whole,  it  was 
not  without  some  show  of  justice  that  Horace 
Walpole,  preoccupied  with  the  more  delicate 
effects  of  chalcography,  stigmatised  the  wood- 
blocks of  his  day  as  "  slovenly  stamps." 

He  was  scarcely  so  fortunate,  however,  wrhen, 
writing  in  the  same  place  of  Papillons  recently 


I.] 


INTRODUCTORY. 


5 


published  "  Traite  historique  et  pratique  de  la 
Gravure  en  Bois,"  he  went  on  to  doubt  if  that 
author  would  ever,  as  he  wished,  "  persuade  the 
world  to  return  to  wooden  cuts."  No  time,  as  it 
chanced,  could  have  been  worse  chosen  for  such 
a  prediction,  since, — assuming  him  to  have  written 
about  1 770, — in  the  short  space  of  five  years  later, 
the  "  Society  of  Arts  M  was  offering  prizes  for  en- 
graving in  wood,  and  its  list  for  1775  contains 
the  names  of  no  less  than  three  persons  who 
received  sums  of  money  on  this  account.  The 
names  were  those  of  Thomas  Hodgson,  William 
Coleman,  and  Thomas  Bewick.  With  respect  to 
the  first  of  the  trio  little  needs  to  be  said  beyond 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  Newcastle  man,  whose  sig- 
nature is  found  attached  to  a  plate  in  Hawkins's 
"  History  of  Music,"  as  well  as  to  certain  poorly 
executed  cuts  for  magazines  and  ballad-heads,  and 
that  he  was  also  a  printer  and  publisher  in  London. 
Concerning  the  second,  we  learn  from  the  "  Trans- 
actions "  of  the  Society  that  he  again  obtained 
prizes  in  1776  and  1777  for  "  engraving  on  wood 
or  type  metal,"  and  from  Redgrave's  "  Dictionary" 


6 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


that  he  died  at  Duke's  Court,  Bow  Street,  Decem- 
ber, 1807.  To  the  third  belongs  the  honour  of 
doing  what  fastidious  Mr.  Walpole  considered  so 
improbable — that  is  to  say,  "persuading  the  world," 
not  all  at  once  perhaps,  but  gradually,  "to  return 
to  wooden  cuts."  It  is  to  the  improvements  made 
by  Bewick  in  wood-engraving,  and  the  impulse 
which  it  received  from  his  individual  genius,  that 
its  revival  as  an  art  must  properly  be  ascribed — a 
revival  which  continues  to  this  day,  and  which 
has  not  yet  reached  the  final  phase  of  its  develop- 
ment. But,  besides  his  qualities  as  a  pioneer  in 
his  craft,  he  was  an  artist  and  observer  of  a  very 
rare  and  exceptional  kind,  whose  best  work,  in 
his  own  line,  remains  unrivalled.  Moreover,  he 
was  a  man  of  a  singularly  attractive  northern  type, 
having  something  both  of  Hogarth  and  Franklin 
in  his  character,  and  deserving  study  as  much 
from  his  personality  as  from  his  talents. 

The  true  record  of  Bewick's  life,  like  that  of 
most  artists,  is  to  be  found  in  his  works,  which 
have  been  voluminously  catalogued  in  Mr.  Hugo's 
"Bewick  Collector,"  1866-68,  and  more  moder- 


I.] 


INTRO  D  UCTOR  Y. 


7 


ately  by  Mr.  J.  G.  Bell  in  1851.  Beyond  these, 
the  chief  written  sources  of  information  respecting 
his  career  are  three  in  number.  The  earliest,  or 
rather  the  first  issued,  is  a  brief  memoir  contri- 
buted in  1 83 1  to  the  "  Transactions  of  the  Natural 
History  Society  of  Northumberland,  etc.,"  by  Mr. 
George  C.  Atkinson,  a  gentleman  of  Newcastle, 
who  knew  him  during  the  last  three  years  of  his 
life.  Next  to  this  comes  chapter  vii.  in  Chatto's 
%i  Treatise  on  Wood-Engraving,"  the  first  edition 
of  which  was  published  by  Charles  Knight  in 
l&39-  J°hn  Jackson,  the  engraver,  who  supplied 
part  of  the  raw  material  for  this  book,  was  a 
native  of  Ovingham,  near  Newcastle,  and  for  a 
short  time  one  of  Bewick's  pupils.  He  completed 
his  apprenticeship  under  another  pupil,  William 
Harvey.  With  some  reservations,  this  account 
contains  many  noteworthy  biographical  particulars, 
together  with  an  examination  of  Bewick's  tech- 
nique. Lastly,  there  is  the  memoir  composed 
by  Bewick  himself  at  Tynemouth  in  November 
1822  for  his  eldest  daughter  Jane,  and  published 
by  her  forty  years  afterwards.    This,  like  the 


8 


THOMAS  BEWICK.  [chap.  i. 


autobiographical  notes  of  Hogarth  which  John 
Ireland  gave  to  the  world,  is  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance, and  to  Bewick's  admirers  must  always 
constitute  the  standard  authority  for  the  points  it 
covers.  Written  with  a  garrulity  easily  pardon- 
able in  an  author  who  had  almost  reached  his 
seventieth  year,  but  nevertheless  strangely  reti- 
cent regarding  his  method  and  his  work,  it  pre- 
sents a  vivid  impression  of  his  character  and 
opinions,  and  a  delightful  picture  of  his  youth. 

Parentage  and  early  surroundings,  according 
to  Carlyle,  are  the  two  great  factors  in  determin- 
ing the  nature  of  a  man's  life  ;  and  by  a  happy 
law  of  our  kind,  it  is  precisely  with  the  recol- 
lections of  childhood  that  old  age  delights  most 
complacently  to  linger.  The  "  Memoir"  of 
Thomas  Bewick  is  no  exception  to  this  rule. 


CHERRYBURN  HOUSE,  BEWICK'S  BIRTHPLACE, 

IN  ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION. 

(Part  of  the  Original  Structure  has  been  Removed.)  To  face  page 


CHAPTER  II. 

bbwick's  boyhood. 

Cherryburn  House,  Bewicks  birthplace,  lay  upon 
the  south  or  right  bank  of  the  Tyne,  in  the  parish 
of  Ovingham,  Northumberland,  and  not  very  far 
from  the  little  village  or  hamlet  of  Eltringham. 
We  say  "lay,"  for  the  old  cottage  now  only  exists 
in  part,  and  that  part  fulfils  the  homely  office  of 
a  "  byre  "  or  cowshed,  over  one  door  of  which 
is  the  inscription — "  Thomas  Bewick  born  here, 
August  1753."  In  the  vicinity  of  this  now  rises 
a  larger  dwelling,  still  inhabited  by  Bewick's 
grandnieces.  What  remains  of  the  older  house 
formed  the  central  portion  of  the  building  shown 
in  John  Bewick's  sketch  of  178 1,  printed  as  a 
frontispiece  to  the  "  Memoir."  Beyond  the  fact 
that  the  "byre"  is  still  thatched  with  ling  or 


lO 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


heath,  and  was  tenanted,  when  the  writer  visited 
it,  by  a  couple  of  calm-eyed,  comfortable-look- 
ing cows,  there  is  nothing  about  it  that  calls  for 
especial  remark.  But  the  little  dean  or  orchard 
at  the  back  is  still  filled  with  cherry  and  plum 
trees,  and  violets  and  primroses  bloom  as  of  yore 
beside  the  now  dry  bed  of  the  once  musical  burn 
which  gave  the  place  its  name.  In  Bewick's  day 
there  was  in  this  orchard  a  spring-well  under  a 
hawthorn  bush,  the  site  of  which  may  yet  be 
traced ;  while  a  precipitous  little  garden  to  the 
north  presumably  remains  much  as  it  used  to  be. 
From  the  slope  on  which  the  house  stands  you 
may  look  towards  the  Tyne,  still  crossed  by  boat- 
ferries  at  Eltringham  and  Ovingham.1  Behind 
you  lies  Mickley,  and  away  to  the  left  and  south 
formerly  stretched  the  great  fell  or  common,  com- 
prising, until  it  was  divided  in  1812,  some  eighteen 
hundred  acres  of  blossoming  "  whins  "  and  scented 
heather,  and  fine  green  pasturage,  watered  by 
trickling  streams.    Over  the  hill  to  the  right  are 

1  Since  this  was  first  written,  the  long-desired  bridge  has  been 
built  at  Ovingham. 


II.] 


BEWICK'S  BOYHOOD. 


Prudhoe  and  Wylam ;  and  across  the  river,  also 
to  the  right,  rises  the  square  romanesque  tower  of 
Ovingham  Church,  where  Bewick  and  his  brother 
John  lie  buried,  and  in  the  parsonage  of  which — 
a  pretty  old-fashioned  stone  house  with  shelving 
garden  terraces — they  went  successively  to  school. 
A  railway  now  comes  winding  from  Newcastle 
through  the  Prudhoe  meadows,  and  an  embank- 
ment runs  along  the  Tyne  to  Eltringham.  But, 
in  spite  of  these  drawbacks,  and  the  smoky  activ- 
ity of  brickworks  and  collieries  hard  by,  it  is  not 
impossible,  on  a  fresh  May  morning,  with  a  blue 
shower-washed  sky  overhead,  and  the  young  green 
triumphing  in  the  shaws  and  braes,  to  realise 
something  of  the  landscape  as  it  must  have  looked 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  when  Thomas 
Bewick  first  saw  the  light. 

His  father,  John  Bewick,  was  a  farmer,  who 
rented  a  small  land-sale  colliery  (i.e.,  a  colliery,  the 
coals  of  which  are  sold  upon  the  spot  to  persons 
in  the  neighbourhood)  at  Mickley.  It  is  still 
worked  and  held  by  the  present  occupants  of 
Cherry  burn.     His  mother,  whose  maiden  name 


I  2 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


was  Jane  Wilson,  came  of  a  Cumberland  family. 
She  was  John  Bewick's  second  wife  (the  first, 
Ann  Topping,  having  died  childless),  and  she 
bore  him  eight  children,  of  whom  Thomas  was 
the  eldest,  and  John,  born  in  1760,  the  fifth.  An- 
other son,  William,  and  five  daughters  completed 
the  family.  It  is  with  the  first-born,  however, 
that  we  are  chiefly  concerned.  He  appears  to 
have  been  sent  to  school  at  Mickley  when 
very  young.  After  the  death  there  of  two  pre- 
ceptors, he  was  placed,  as  a  day  scholar,  under 
the  care  of  the  Reverend  Christopher  Gregson  of 
Ovingham,  whose  housekeeper  his  mother  had 
been  before  her  marriage.  There  is  no  evidence 
that  he  distinguished  himself  by  any  remarkable 
diligence,  although  his  after-career  shows  that  he 
must  have  acquired^  some  knowledge  of  Latin, 
and,  what  is  better,  of  English.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  "Memoir"  is  full  of  schoolboy  escap- 
ades which  betoken  him  to  have  been  a  lad  of 
unusual  courage  and  intractability,  earning,  in 
those  days  when  the  rule  of  the  rod  was  still  sup- 
reme, no  small  amount  of  physical  correction  from 


II.] 


BEWICK'S  BOYHOOD. 


13 


his  father  and  schoolmaster.  Now  he  is  taming 
a  runaway  horse  by  riding  it  barebacked  over 
the  sykes  and  burns  ;  now  frightening  oxen  into 
the  river  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  " delight- 
ful dash  ; "  now  scampering  off  naked  across  the 
fell  with  his  companions,  in  imitation  of  the 
savages  in  "  Robinson  Crusoe.''  After  these  mis- 
demeanours, if  not  locked  into  the  belfry  by  Mr. 
Gregson  to  keep  company  with  the  ghosts  and 
bogles,  he  would  steal  home,  wading  the  river, 
and  hide  himself  in  the  byre-loft  until  his  father's 
anger  should  blow  over.  But,  with  all  this,  he 
was  not  in  any  wise  bad  or  vicious.  He  was 
truthful  and  warmhearted,  and  an  appeal  to  his 
better  feelings  was  seldom  without  success.  One 
good  quality  he  also  seems  to  have  possessed, 
not  often  found  in  boys.  After  a  gentle  re- 
proof from  his  masters  daughter,  he  never  again 
"  plagued  "  girls  in  his  youth;  and  he  preserved 
this  early  respect  for  women  to  the  last  day  of 
his  life. 

Such  not  by  any  means  exceptional  character- 
istics are,  however,  of  less  moment  than  those 


14 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


earlier  indications  of  the  tastes  which  so  strongly 
coloured  his  after-life  —  his  love  for  drawing 
and  his  love  of  nature.  The  former  appears 
to  have  been  intuitive.  Like  Hogarth's,  his 
"  exercises  when  at  school  were  more  remarkable 
for  the  ornaments  which  adorned  them,  than  for 
the  exercise  itself."  After  exhausting  the  margins 
of  his  books,  he  had  recourse  to  the  gravestones 
and  the  floor  of  the  church  porch,  which  he  covered 
with  rude  representations  in  chalk  of  devices  or 
scenes  he  had  met  with,  and  the  pastime  of  the 
day  at  Ovingham  was  continued  in  the  evening 
on  the  flags  and  hearth  at  Cherryburn.  At  this 
time,  he  says,  "  I  had  never  heard  of  the  word 
'  drawing,'  nor  did  I  know  of  any  other  paintings 
besides  the  king's  arms  in  the  church,  and  the 
signs  in  Ovingham  of  the  Black  Bull,  the  White 
Horse,  the  Salmon,  and  the  Hounds  and  Hare. 
I  always  thought  I  could  make  a  far  better  hunting 
scene  than  the  latter:  the  others  were  beyond  my 
hand."  But  although,  oddly  enough,  he  makes 
no  mention  of  it  at  this  stage  of  the  "  Memoir," 
there  was  another  kind  of  art  with  which  he  must 


II.] 


BEWICK'S  BOYHOOD. 


i5 


have  been  minutely  acquainted.  The  house  at 
Ovingham  where  the  boys  kept  their  "  dinner- 
poke  "  during  school  hours  was  lavishly  orna- 


QUEEN  ELIZABETH.     (FROM  A  CHAP-BOOK  PRINTED  BY  J.  WHITE  OF  NEWCASTLE.) 

mented  with  those  patriotic  prints  and  broad- 
sides to  which  reference  has  already  been  made. 
Here  he  might  lay  to  heart  the  "  large  and 
curious  "  representation  of  "His  Majesty's  Execu- 


i6 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


tion,"  surmounting  the  famous  "Twelve  Good 
Rules,  found  in  the  Study  of  King  Charles  the 
First,  of  Blessed  Memory."  Or  he  might  devote 
himself  to  the  "  Battle  of  Zorndorff,"  and  the 
"  Sinking  of  the  'Victory'  (Admiral  Sir  John 
Balchen)  "  ;  or  rejoice  over  the  manly  present- 
ments of  Benbow,  and  "  Tom  Brown,1  the  valiant 
grenadier."  And  this  was  not  the  only  collec- 
tion. In  Mr.  Gregson's  kitchen  was  "a  remark- 
ably good  likeness  of  Captain  Coram/'  the  brave 
old  philanthropist  whom  Hogarth  painted  ;  and 
"  in  cottages  everywhere  were  to  be  seen  the 
'  Sailor's  Farewell '  and  his  '  Happy  Return,' 
'Youthful  Sports/  and  the  'Feats  of  Manhood,' 
'  The  Bold  Archers  Shooting  at  a  Mark/  '  The 
Four  Seasons,' "  and  the  like.  These  popular 
knife-cut  pictures,  considered  in  connection  with 

1  The  fame  of  this  popular  hero  is  now  forgotten  ;  but  to-day  he 
would  have  earned  the  Victoria  Cross.  In  1743,  according  to 
the  "  Gentleman's  Magazine,"  he  was  a  raw-boned  young  York- 
shireman  of  eight-and-twenty,  not  a  grenadier,  but  a  private  in 
Bland's  dragoons.  At  Dettingen  he  recaptured  the  standard 
single-handed,  in  which  exploit  he  received  five  wounds  in  the 
face,  head,  and  neck,  two  balls  in  the  back,  and  three  through  his 
hat.    Boitard  engraved  a  portrait  of  him. 


II.] 


BEWICK'S  BOYHOOD. 


17 


the  future  restorer  of  wood -engraving,  are  of 
greater  significance  than  the  ale-house  signs.1 

After  he  had  long  scorched  his  face  with  his 
hearthstone  designs  a  friend  in  compassion  fur- 
nished him  with  some  drawing  paper. 

"  Here  (he  says)  I  had  more  scope.  Pen  and 
ink,  and  the  juice  of  the  brambleberry,  made  a 
grand  change.  These  were  succeeded  by  a  camel- 
hair  pencil  and  shells  of  colours  ;  and,  thus  sup- 
plied, I  became  completely  set  up;  but  of  patterns, 
or  drawings,  I  had  none.  The  beasts  and  birds, 
which  enlivened  the  beautiful  scenery  of  woods 
and  wilds  surrounding  my  native  hamlet,  furnished 
me  with  an  endless  supply  of  subjects.    I  now,  in 

1  Bewick  was  not  singular  in  deriving  inspiration  from  these 
humble  sources.  "  I  recollect  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, — who  was 
present  one  evening  [at  Longford's  sale]  when  a  drawing  was 
knocked  down  to  his  pupil  and  agent,  Mr.  Score, — after  he  had 
expatiated  upon  the  extraordinary  powers  of  Rembrandt,  assuring 
a  gentleman  with  whom  he  was  conversing,  that  the  effect  which 
pleased  him  most  in  all  his  own  pictures  was  that  displayed  in 
the  one  of  Lord  Ligonier  on  horseback,  of  which  there  is  an 
engraving  by  Fisher,  the  chiaro-'scuro  of  which  he  conceived 
from  a  rude  wood-cut  upon  a  halfpenny  ballad,  which  he  pur- 
chased from  the  wall  of  St.  Anne's  Church  in  Princes-Street." — 
"  Nollekens  and  his  Times,"  1828,  i.  36,  37. 

C 


iS 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


the  estimation  of  my  rustic  neighbours,  became 
an  eminent  painter,  and  the  walls  of  their  houses 
were  ornamented  with  an  abundance  of  my  rude 
productions,  at  a  very  cheap  rate.  These  chiefly 
consisted  of  particular  hunting  scenes,  in  which 
the  portraits  of  the  hunters,  the  horses,  and  of 
every  dog  in  the  pack,  were,  in  their  opinion,  as 
well  as  my  own,  faithfully  delineated.  But  while 
I  was  proceeding  in  this  way,  I  was  at  the  same 
time  deeply  engaged  in  matters  nearly  allied  to 
this  propensity  for  drawing  ;  for  I  early  became 
acquainted,  not  only  with  the  history  and  the 
character  of  the  domestic  animals,  but  also  with 
those  which  roamed  at  large." 

This  brings  us  to  that  second  taste,  the  love 
of  nature.  From  earliest  childhood,  when,  by  the 
little  window  at  his  bed-head,  he  had  listened  to 
the  flooded  burn  murmuring  through  the  dean  at 
the  back  of  the  house,  or  watched,  from  the  byre- 
door,  the  rarer  birds — the  woodcocks,  the  snipes, 
the  redwings,  the  fieldfares — which  in  winter 
made  their  unwonted  appearance  in  the  frozen 
landscape,  the  sights  and  sounds  of  nature  had 


II.] 


BEWICK'S  BOYHOOD. 


19 


filled  him  with  delight.  To  milk  the  cows,  to  cut 
and  "  cree "  whin-tops  for  the  horses,  to  carry 
straw  and  oats  to  the  shivering  and  pastureless 
sheep  on  the  fell — these  were  pleasures  not  to  be 
forgotten,  and  only  to  be  excelled  by  his  favourite 
angling,  which,  with  its  endless  "  set  gads  "  and 
night  lines,  its  early  risings,  and  late  waterside 
wadings,  occupied  the  summer  months  in  happy 
cares.  Then,  when  the  Tyne  was  flooded  and 
school  a  thing  impossible,1  there  were  the  field 
sports  of  the  neighbourhood,  the  "  flushing"  of 
strange  fowl  by  the  terriers,  the  hunting  of  the 
hare  and  fox,  the  tracing  of  the  " foumart"  (pole- 
cat) in  the  snow,  or  the  baiting  of  the  badger  at 
midnight.  The  cruelty  of  field  sports  did  not  at 
first  present  itself  to  him.  Once,  however,  he 
caught  a  hunted    hare    in  his  arms,  and  was 

1  <;  During  storms  and  floods,  those  living  on  the  south  side 
of  the  river  can  neither  attend  the  church,  nor,  as  it  sometimes 
happens,  bring  their  dead  to  be  buried  "  (Mackenzie's  "  North- 
umberland," 1825,  ii.  362).  In  the  last  tailpiece  of  the  "  Memoir" 
a  boat  is  seen  waiting  at  the  Eltringham  Ferry  on  a  windy  day 
for  a  coffin  which  is  being  borne  down  the  hill  from  Cherryburn. 
The  little  pencil  sketch  which  Bewick  made  for  this  tailpiece  is 
still  in  existence.    It  belongs  to  Mr.  J.  W.  Barnes  of  Durham. 


20 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


strangely  moved  by  the  poor  creature's  piteous 
screams  of  terror.  On  another  occasion  the 
effect  was  more  lasting  : — 

"  The  next  occurrence  of  the  kind  happened 
with  a  bird.  I  had  no  doubt  knocked  many  down 
with  stones  before,  but  they  had  escaped  being 
taken.  This  time,  however,  the  little  victim 
dropped  from  the  tree,  and  I  picked  it  up.  It 
was  alive,  and  looked  me  piteously  in  the  face  ; 
and,  as  I  thought,  could  it  have  spoken,  it  would 
have  asked  me  why  I  had  taken  away  its  life. 
I  felt  greatly  hurt  at  what  I  had  done,  and  did 
not  quit  it  all  the  afternoon.  I  turned  it  over 
and  over,  admiring  its  plumage,  its  feet,  its  bill, 
and  every  part  of  it.  It  was  a  bullfinch.  I  did 
not  then  know  its  name,  but  I  was  told  it  was  a 
*  little  Matthew  Martin.'  This  was  the  last  bird 
I  killed ;  but  many,  indeed,  have  been  since  killed 
on  my  account." 

Different  in  kind,  but  connected  as  closely 
with  the  country  life,  were  his  interest  in,  and 
attraction  to,  the  strange  characters  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood— characters  more  common  a  hundred 


II.] 


BEWICK'S  BOYHOOD. 


21 


years  ago  than  now,  when  railways  and  other 
facilities  for  intercourse  have  done  so  much 
to  round  off  the  angles  of  individuality.  The 
winter-night  tales  of  wild  exploits  in  the  hunting- 
field,  and  legends  of  the  Border  Wars,  were  a 
never-failing  source  of  pleasure.  By  the  woful 
"  laments/'  such  as  those  for  the  last  Earl  of 
Derwentwater,  with  whose  death  it  was  supposed 
prosperity  had  for  ever  departed  from  Tyne- 
side,  he  was  often  affected  to  tears.  Of  some  of 
the  cottagers  on  the  fell — poor  men  whose  little 
store  consisted  of  a  few  sheep,  a  Kyloe  cow,  or 
a  flock  of  geese,  and  whose  sole  learning  was 
derived  from  Holy  Writ,  old  ballads,  and  local 
histories — he  has  left  portraits  which  show  how 
deeply  they  had  impressed  him.  One  of  these  was 
Will  Bewick,  a  self-taught  astronomer,  skilled  in 
stars  and  planets,  upon  which  he  would  discourse, 
"  pointing  to  them  with  his  large  hands,  and 
eagerly  imparting  his  knowledge  .  .  .  with  a 
strong  voice,  such  as  one  now  seldom  hears." 
Another  was  the  "  village  Hampden,"  Anthony 
Liddell,  who  had  formed  himself  entirely  on  the 


22 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


study  of  the  Bible,  finding  in  its  precepts  reasons 
for  utter  disregard  of  the  game-laws,  and  exulting 
in  the  jail,  to  which  he  was  frequently  committed, 
since  he  gained  the  opportunity  of  reading  it 
through  once  more.  Liddell's  ordinary  appear- 
ance— judging  from  the  description  of  it  in  the 
"  Memoir" — must  have  been  almost  as  remark- 
able as  that  of  Fielding's  "  Man  of  the  Hill  "  : — 

"  When  full-dressed,  he  wore  a  rusty  black 
coat.  In  other  respects  he  was  like  no  other 
person.  In  what  king's  reign  his  hat  had  been 
made  was  only  to  be  guessed  at,  but  the  flipes 
[flaps]  of  it  were  very  large.  His  wig  was  of  the 
large  curled  kind,  such  as  was  worn  about  the 
period  of  the  revolution.  His  waistcoat,  or 
doublet,  was  made  of  the  skin  of  some  animal. 
His  buckskin  breeches  were  black  and  glossy 
with  long  wear,  and  of  the  same  antiquated 
fashion  as  the  rest  of  his  apparel.  Thus  equipt, 
and  with  his  fierce  look,  he  made  a  curious  figure 
when  taken  before  the  justices  of  the  peace ;  and 
this,  together  with  his  always — when  summoned 
before  them  —  undauntedly  pleading   his  own 

/ 


II.] 


BEWICK'S  BOYHOOD. 


23 


cause,  often  afforded  them  so  much  amusement  that 
it  was  difficult  for  them  to  keep  their  gravity." 

A  third  Ovingham  worthy  was  Thomas 
Forster,  called  familiarly  "  Tom  Howdy"  (mid- 
wife) from  his  mothers  occupation,  with  his  stock 
of  secret  beehives  in  the  whin  bushes  ;  and  last, 
but  by  no  means  least,  come  the  swarming  old 
soldiers  let  loose  upon  the  country  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  "  Seven  Years'  War" — old  comrades 
in  Napier's  and  Kingsley's,  full  of  memories  of 
Minden  and  Lord  George  Sackville — of  James 
Wolfe  and  Quebec.  Bewick's  strong  abhorrence 
of  war,  which  appears  so  plainly  in  the  later  pages 
of  the  "  Memoir,"  had  not  yet  been  developed,  and 
he  listened  eagerly  to  these  weatherbeaten  cam- 
paigners, with  their  tarnished  uniforms  and  their 
endless  stories  about  their  prowess  in  the  field. 

But  there  comes  an  end  to  everything ;  and 
the  ineliictabile  tempus  arrived  at  length  when  a 
calling  must  be  chosen  for  the  stout  boy  of  four- 
teen. His  taste  for  drawing  determined  his 
apprenticeship  to  a  Newcastle  engraver,  and  he 
quitted  Cherryburn  to  serve  his  time  with  Mr. 


24 


THOMAS  BEWICK.  [chap.  ii. 


Ralph  Beilby  of  that  town.  The  pang  of  separa- 
tion was  a  grievous  one. 

"  I  liked  my  master"  (he  says) ;  "  I  liked  the  busi- 
ness ;  but  to  part  from  the  country,  and  to  leave  all 
its  beauties  behind  me,  with  which  I  had  been  all  my 
life  charmed  in  an  extreme  degree, — and  in  a  way  I 
cannot  describe, — I  can  only  say  my  heart  was  like 
to  break  ;  and,  as  we  passed  away,  I  inwardly  bade 
farewell  to  the  whinny  wilds,  to  Mickley  bank,  to 
the  Stob-cross  hill,  to  the  water-banks,  the  woods, 
and  to  particular  trees,  and  even  to  the  large,  hol- 
low old  elm,1  which  had  lain  perhaps  for  centuries 
past,  on  the  haugh  near  the  ford  we  were  about  to 
pass,  and  which  had  sheltered  the  salmon-fishers, 
while  at  work  there,  from  many  a  bitter  blast." 

These  things  would  be  remembered  afterwards 
in  the  busy  city ;  and  though,  for  a  long  period, 
the  link  with  the  country  was  not  wholly  severed, 
it  is  doubtless  to  those  yearning  recollections  that 
we  owe  the  rural  element  in  Bewick's  work  which 
is  its  most  abiding  charm. 

1  This  old  tree — a  note  tells  us — was  swept  away  in  the  great 
flood  of  November,  1771,  to  which  reference  is  made  at  p.  109. 


CHAPTER  III. 


APPRENTICESHIP. 

Looking  down  upon  the  Tyne  from  the  pleasant 
parsonage  garden  at  Ovingham,  with  the  round- 
arched  door  and  dial,  and  the  bright  flowerbeds 
in  shadow,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  keenly 
the  boy  must  have  felt  the  change.  Over  the 
broken  water  at  the  ferry  the  swallows  are  wheel- 
ing and  turning,  while  from  the  other  side  a  rustic 
group  hails  the  ferryman.  Higher  up,  a  man, 
with  raised  knees,  rides  his  horse  through  the 
river  at  the  ford  ;  a  pony  and  cart  come  after. 
Below  the  ferry  an  angler  is  wading  mid -deep  : 
on  the  opposite  bank  another  is  throwing  a  fly. 
At  his  back  two  tiny  figures  of  school -children 
climb  the  steep  hill  to  Master's  Close.  From  the 
tall  trees  at  Eltringham  on  the  right  comes  the 


26 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


cry  of  the  cuckoo  :  on  the  left  the  rooks  are 
cawing  in  the  great  rookery  at  Prudhoe  Castle, 
the  ancient  seat  of  the  Umfravilles.  There  is  no 
other  sound  but  the  rippling  flow  of  the  river  to 
Newcastle  and  the  sea. 

But  the  Newcastle  to  which  it  flows  to-day  is 
a  far  different  place  from  the  Newcastle  to  which 
Bewick  came  in  October  1767.  One  might  then, 
as  now,  stand  by  the  famous  church  of  St. 
Nicholas,  with  its  fairylike  turrets  and  vanes 
and  crocketted  pinnacles,  but  the  grand  High 
Level  Bridge  which  Robert  Stephenson  flung 
across  the  steep  ravine  between  Newcastle  and 
Gateshead  was  yet  a  thing  undreamed  of.  The 
keep  of  the  old  Norman  castle  which  gave  the 
town  its  name,  black  with  age  and  smoke,  still 
fronts  it  at  the  northern  end  ;  but  the  spectator 
may  seek  in  vain  for  the  frowning  and  gloomy 
gates  which  stretched  across  the  main  streets 
from  Westgate  to  Pilgrim  Street,  or  the  pleasant 
gardens  and  orchards  which  everywhere  inter- 
sected the  city,  and  shut  in  the  stately  mansions 
and   antique  houses  with  carved  enrichments, 


III.] 


APPRENTICESHIP. 


27 


where  dwelt  its  merchant  princes.1  The  red-brick 
shop  of  Bewick's  new  master  stood  near  Amen 
Corner,  and  looked  into  St.  Nicholas's  Church- 
yard. It  was  distinguishable  by  two  fantastic 
wooden  spouts,  and  existed  until  very  lately  ;  but 
a  towering  building  in  the  modern  taste  now  occu- 
pies its  site.  Bewick  boarded  with  Mr.  Beilby, 
and,  after  the  fashion  of  those  days,  attended  him 
to  divine  service  twice  every  Sunday  (probably 
carrying  the  prayer-book),2  groomed  his  brother's 
horse,  and  made  himself  generally  useful,  not 

1  Some  of  these  expressions  are  borrowed  from  a  pleasantly- 
written  little  pamphlet  by  Mr.  Robert  Robinson,  of  Pilgrim  Street, 
issued  in  1876  with  his  reprint  of  Bewick's  "  Waiting  for  Death." 

2  The  London  apprentices,  if  we  may  trust  Foote,  had  some- 
what departed  from  the  "  beneficial  and  cleanly  way  "  of  life 
which  still  prevailed  in  the  provinces  : — 

Sir  William.  .  .  .  What,  old  boy,  times  are  chang'd  since  the  date 
of  thy  indentures ;  when  the  sleek,  crop-ear'd  'prentice  us'd  to  dangle  after 
his  mistress,  with  the  great  gilt  Bible  under  his  arm,  to  St.  Bride's,  on  a 
Sunday ;  bring  home  the  text,  repeat  the  divisions  of  the  discourse,  dine  at 
twelve,  and  regale,  upon  a  gaudy  day,  with  buns  and  beer  at  Islington,  or 
Mile-End. 

R.  Wealthy.  Wonderfully  facetious  ! 

Sir  William.  Our  modern  lads  are  of  a  different  metal.  They  have 
their  gaming  clubs  in  the  garden,  their  little  lodgings,  the  snug  depositories 
of  their  rusty  swords,  and  occasional  bag-wigs ;  their  horses  for  the  turf ; 
ay,  and  their  commissions  of  bankruptcy  too,  before  they  are  well  out  of 
their  time. 

The  Minor,  1760,  Act  i. 


28 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


omitting,  doubtless,  to  abstain  carefully  from  the 
over-abundant  Tyne  salmon  which  (as  per  indent- 
ure) the  apprentice  of  the  period  was  not  obliged 
to  eat  more  than  twice  a  week. 

For  some  time  after  entering  the  business 
he  was  employed  in  copying  "  Copeland's  Orna- 
ments" (Copelands  "  New  Book  of  Ornaments," 
1746,  or  Lock  and  Copelands  do.,  1752,  both  of 
which  were  in  possession  of  his  family),  and 
"this,"  he  says,  "was  the  only  kind  of  drawing 
upon  which  I  ever  had  a  lesson  given  to  me  from 
any  one."  So  far  as  the  discipline  of  the  hand 
is  concerned,  the  statement  is  no  doubt  strictly 
accurate ;  but  that  other  education  of  the  sight, 
which  Hogarth  defined  as  the  early  habit  "of 
retaining  in  his  mind's  eye,  without  coldly  copy- 
ing it  on  the  spot,  whatever  he  intended  to  imi- 
tate," had  probably  been  active  for  many  years 
previously.  Beilby's  work  was  of  a  most  multi- 
farious character.  Pipe  moulds,  bottle  moulds, 
brass  clock-faces,  coffin-plates,  stamps,  seals,  bill- 
heads, ciphers  and  crests  for  the  silversmiths — 
nothing  seems  to  have  come  amiss  ;  and  the 


III.] 


APPRENTICESHIP, 


29 


coarser  kinds  of  engraving  which  fell  to  the  share 
of  the  young  apprentice  made  his  hands  as  hard 
and  large  as  a  blacksmith's.  According  to  the 
"  Memoir,"  the  first  "jobs"  on  which  he  was  em- 
ployed were  etching  sword-blades,  and  blocking 
out  the  wood  about  the  lines  on  diagrams  (to 
be  finished  subsequently  by  his  master)  for  the 
"  Ladies'  Diary,"  a  popular  almanac  which  dated 
as  far  back  as  1 704,  and  which  was  edited  for 
many  years  by  Charles  Hutton,  then  a  Newcastle 
schoolmaster,  and  later  the  celebrated  Dr.  Hutton 
of  Woolwich.  It  was  for  Hutton  also  that  he  did 
what  in  the  catalogues  figures  as  his  earliest  pro- 
duction, namely  the  diagrams  to  a  "  Treatise  on 
Mensuration."  This  book,  which  long  enjoyed 
a  great  reputation,  made  its  ddbut  in  fifty  six- 
penny numbers  (!),  and  was  issued  in  1770  as 
a  portentous  quarto  volume.  One  of  the  cuts, 
often  referred  to  with  exaggerated  interest, 
contains  a  representation  of  the  tower  of  St. 
Nicholas's  Church,  afterwards  a  frequent  feature 
in  Bewick's  designs.  Considerable  ingenuity  ap- 
pears to  have  been  shown  by  him  in  the  execution 


3o 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


of  these  diagrams ;  and  he  is  said  to  have  devised 
a  double-pointed  graver,  so  successful  in  its  oper- 
ations, that  the  completion  of  the  work,  which  had 
been  begun  by  Beilby  himself,  was  transferred  to 
him  at  Hutton's  request.    About  the  same  time 


st.  Nicholas's  church,    (from  hutton's  "mensuration,"  1770.) 

he  designed  and  engraved  a  billhead  for  the 
"  George  and  Dragon"  Inn,  and  (according  to 
Mr.  Atkinson)  another  for  the  "  Cock,"  a  famous 
old  hostelry  at  the  Head  of  the  Side.  These  per- 
formances, though  of  the  rudest  character,  were 
exceedingly  popular  ;  and  commissions  for  work 


III.] 


APPRENTICESHIP. 


3i 


on  wood,  which  had  hitherto  been  little  done  in 
Beilby's  shop,  began  to  multiply.  Numerous 
orders  for  cuts  for  children's  books  were  received, 
chiefly  from  Thomas  Saint,  a  printer  and  publisher 
of  Newcastle,  who  had  succeeded  John  White, 
once  famous  for  his  stories  and  for  the  old  ballads 
which  were  sung  about  the  streets  on  market 
days.  With  exception  of  the  Hutton  diagrams, 
the  first  efforts  of  Bewick  in  the  way  of  book- 
illustration  would  seem  to  have  been  the  "  new 
invented  Horn  Book "  and  the  "  New  Lottery 
Book  of  Birds  and  Beasts,"  1 77 1 . 

Much  caution  must,  however,  be  exercised  in 
speaking  of  these  juvenilia,  which  seem  to  have 
been  unknown  to  Mr.  Atkinson,  and  are  not 
mentioned  in  the  "  Descriptive  and  Critical  Cata- 
logue of  Works  illustrated  by  Thomas  and  John 
Bewick,"  published  by  John  Gray  Bell  in  1 85 1. 
Specimens  of  blocks  from  both  of  them  are  given 
in  Mr.  Edwin  Pearson's  reprint  of  the  "  Select 
Fables  "  of  1784.  In  the  same  conjectural  cate- 
gory must  be  placed  the  "  Child's  Tutor  ;  or, 
Entertaining  Preceptor,"  1772,  the  cuts  of  which 


3? 


THOMAS  BE  WICK, 


[chap. 


were  said  by  a  well-known  Bewick  collector,  Mr. 
W.  Garret,  to  have  been  engraved  by  Bewick  "  in 
the  first  year  of  his  apprenticeship,  though  he 
was  afterwards  ashamed  to  own  them."  Next 
comes  the  " Moral  Instructions  of  a  Father  to  his 
Son,"  etc.,  1 772,  at  the  end  of  which  was  a  number 
of  "  Select  Fables/'  with  thirty-three  small  illus- 
trations, concerning  which  we  have  the  express 
assurance  given  by  Miss  Jane  Bewick  to  Mr. 
Pearson  in  January  1867,  that  they  were  the  work 
of  her  father.  Mr.  Pearson  also  gives  examples 
of  these,  which  are  more  interesting  than  remark- 
able. The  only  other  work  to  which,  for  the  pre- 
sent, it  is  needful  to  refer,  is  the  "  Youth's  In- 
structive and  Entertaining  Story  Teller,"  pub- 
lished by  Saint  in  1774.  Of  this  Bewick  himself 
speaks  in  the  "  Memoir,"  which  places  its  authen- 
ticity beyond  a  question.  We  do  not,  however,, 
propose  to  linger  over  these  elementary  efforts. 
They  were  the  tentative  essays  of  an  artist  who 
neither  knew  his  own  strength,  nor  foresaw  the 
resources  of  the  vehicle  he  was  employing  ;  and 
who,  when  his  talents  were  matured  and  his  voca- 


III.] 


APPRENTICESHIP. 


33 


tion  found,  might  well  be  excused  if  he  declined 
to  be  over-communicative  respecting  work  which 
he  had  long  excelled.  Indeed,  he  excelled  it  in  a 
marked  manner  before  the  termination  of  his 
apprenticeship.  Among  the  wood  blocks  upon 
which  he  was  busily  engaged  during  the  latter 
part  of  that  period  were  some  intended  for  an 
edition  of  "  Gays  Fables."  Of  five  of  these  Mr. 
Beilby  thought  so  well  that  he  submitted  them  to 
the  Society  of  Arts  in  London,  from  whom,  as 
already  stated,  they  received  the  recognition  of  a 
premium  of  seven  guineas,  which  Bewick  at  once 
transferred  to  his  mother. 

"  Gay's  Fables,"  however,  were  not  published 
until  1779,  and  long  before  that  date  Bewick 
had  quitted  Mr.  Beilby's  shop.  During  the 
time  of  his  bondage,  his  character  and  habits 
became  definitely  formed.  Having  fallen  into 
ill-health  through  over-application  and  the  reading 
which  was  almost  his  sole  amusement,  the  pre- 
cepts of  a  sensible  Newcastle  physician  and  nota- 
bility, Dr.  Bailes,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  kind 
of  local  Abernethy,  made  him  turn  his  attention 

D 


34 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


to  questions  of  diet  and  exercise.  He  began  to 
study  the  regimen  of  the  famous  Venetian  cente- 
narian, Lewis  Cornaro,  together  with  the  recom- 
mendations as  to  occasional  days  of  abstinence 
given,  but  probably  not  observed,  by  the  great 
Mr.  Joseph  Addison.1  He  thought  nothing,  he 
tells  us,  of  setting  out,  after  seven  in  the  evening, 
to  walk  to  Cherryburn,  a  distance  of  more  than 
eleven  miles,  to  see  his  parents,  for  whom  he 
maintained  the  warmest  affection,  and  never  failed 
to  visit  periodically.  These  long  walks,  he  adds, 
were  chiefly  occupied  by  the  devising  of  plans  for 
his  conduct  in  life.  But  it  may  well  be  that  the 
insensible  education  through  the  senses  during 
his  solitary  expeditions  was  of  even  more  import- 
ance than  the  forming  of  resolves,  however  praise- 
worthy, to  pay  ready  money,  and  never  to  live 
beyond  his  means. 

He  did  not  always  continue  to  be  an  inmate 

1  A  little  copy  of  Cornaro's  "  Sure  and  Certain  Methods  of  at- 
taining a  Long  and  Healthful  Life,"  etc.,  dated  1727,  and  roughly 
rebound  in  sheep,  is  in  the  possession  of  the  present  writer. 
It  once  belonged  to  Robert  Elliot  Bewick,  and  is  possibly  the 
identical  copy  which  was  his  father's  companion  when  wandering 
on  the  Town  Moor,  or  in  the  Elswick  fields. 


III.] 


APPRENTICESHIP. 


35 


of  Mr.  Beilby's  house  in  the  churchyard.  After 
due  time  he  went  to  lodge  with  an  aunt,  and 
subsequently  with  a  flax-dresser  and  bird-fancier 
named  Hatfield.  Here  he  had  an  opportunity  of 
becoming  acquainted  with  very  varied  company. 
Those  of  the  trade  who  visited  his  landlord  in  his 
capacity  of  flax-dresser  were  a  worthless  and  dis- 
solute race  ;  but  (as  might  be  conjectured)  to  the 
tales  of  the  bird-catchers  and  bird-dealers  who 
resorted  to  the  house  he  listened  with  the  greatest 
interest.  Among  the  acquaintances  whom  he 
made  about  this  time  was  Thomas  Spence,  the 
philanthropist,  who  was  already  actively  promul- 
gating the  doctrine,  still  preached  in  our  own  day, 
that  property  in  land  is  everyone's  right ;  and  at 
"  his  school  on  the  Quayside  "  (spelled  "  Key- 
side"),  elaborating  his  new  alphabet  and  phonetic 
system  of  orthography.  For  some  of  his  types 
Bewick  cut  the  steel  punches ;  but,  though  he 
believed  him  to  be  sincere  and  honest,  he  does  not 
appear  to  have  unreservedly  espoused  his  prin- 
ciples, and  his  failure  to  support  them  on  one 
occasion  at  a  debating  society  resulted  in  a  bout 


36 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


with  the  cudgels,  in  which  the  philosopher  behaved 
so  unphilosophically,  and  even  unfairly,  that  Be- 
wick was  obliged  to  give  him  "  a  severe  beating/' 
Others  of  Bewicks  associates  were  better 
chosen,  if  they  could  scarcely  be  regarded  as  less 
peculiar,  than  the  remarkable  author  of  "The 
Teacher  of  Common  Sense/'  and  "  Pigs'  Meat ; 
or,  Lessons  for  the  People."  Foremost  of  these 
come  the  Grays,  father  and  sons.  The  father, 
Gilbert  Gray,  was  a  bookbinder,  and  a  thoroughly 
estimable  man.  He  had  previously  been  assistant 
to  Allan  Ramsay,  after  that  worthy  wigmaker  had 
left  off  "  theeking  the  outside  of  the  pash  in 
order  to  line  the  inside,"  and  was  writing  the 
"  Gentle  Shepherd."  When  Bewick  knew  Gray 
he  was  advanced  in  years,  and  following  his  trade 
in  Newcastle.  He  lived  in  the  most  primitive 
way,  eating  when  he  was  hungry,  sleeping  when 
he  was  drowsy,  and  spending  his  money  on  the 
publication  of  little  books  of  the  moral  and  en- 
tertaining class  (the  "  Countryman's  Treasure," 
"  Multum  in  Parvo,"  the  "  Complete  Fabulist," 
etc.),  which  he  sold  to  the  people  who  attended 


III.] 


APPRENTICESHIP. 


37 


the  market  on  Saturdays.  On  winter  evenings 
his  workshop  was  the  resort  of  a  number  of  young 
men,  to  whom  his  advice  and  example  were  of 
considerable  service.  In  that  of  his  son,  William 
Gray,  also  a  bookbinder,  Bewick  was  enabled  to 
consult  volumes  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
sealed  to  him,  and  often  before  his  own  labours 
had  begun  for  the  day  he  might  be  found  studying 
the  treasures  his  friend  had  to  bind.  But  the  genius 
of  the  family  was  George  Gray,  a  fruit-painter  of 
considerable  local  eminence,  and  a  good  geolo- 
gist, chemist,  and  botanist  to  boot.  In  this  last 
capacity  he  travelled  through  great  part  of  North 
America  —  no  common  feat  in  1787.  He  is 
described  as  extremely  eccentric,  both  in  his 
dress  and  habits.  Moreover,  he  was  a  confirmed 
misogynist,  until  a  serious  illness  for  the  moment 
perverted  him  to  the  belief  that  "  man  is  not  born 
to  live  alone."  Whilst  under  the  influence  of 
this  enervating  change  in  his  opinions,  he  married 
a  shoemakers  widow  ;  but  after  her  death  declared 
that  all  the  riches  of  Mexico  and  Peru  should  not 
tempt  him  to  repeat  the  experiment.  George 


38 


THOMAS  BE  WICK.  [chap.  hi. 


Gray  was  five  years  younger  than  Bewick.  It 
must,  therefore,  be  assumed  that  in  speaking  of 
him  at  this  stage  of  the  "  Memoir,"  Bewick  was 
anticipating  an  acquaintanceship  which  belongs  to 
a  somewhat  later  date. 


TAILPIECE.     (FROM  FERGUSON'S  "  POEMS,"  1814.) 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  WANDERJAHRE." 

On  the  ist  of  October  1774,  the  seven  years' 
apprenticeship  expired  ;  and  Bewick,  after  work- 
ing for  a  short  time  with  his  old  master  at  a 
guinea  a  week,  returned  to  Cherryburn,  where  he 
remained  until  1776.  He  continued  to  execute 
woodcuts  and  other  commissions,  chiefly  for 
Thomas  Angus,  a  printer  of  Newcastle,  and 
occupied  his  leisure,  as  of  old,  with  angling  and 
field-sports,  growing  more  and  more  attached  to 
the  country  sights  and  ways.  His  later  recol- 
lections dwell  lovingly  upon  the  genial  Christmas 
festivities  of  the  gentry  and  farmers,  when  the  air 
was  filled  with  old  tunes,  with  the  cheery  notes  of 
the  Northumberland  small-pipes,1  with  the  buzz 

1  A  bagpipe,  differing  from  the  Scotch,  being  Smaller,  and 


40 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


of  the  "  foulpleughs  "  or  Morrice-dancers  ;  and  he 
sighs  for  the  days  gone  by,  when  home-brewed 
ale  was  honest  malt  and  hops.  In  the  summer  of 
1776  the  spirit  of  wandering  seized  upon  him, 
and,  sewing  three  guineas  in  his  waistband,  he 
made  a  long  pedestrian  excursion  to  Cumberland 
and  the  lake  country,  —  thence  to  Edinburgh 
and  Glasgow.  Passing  up  the  beautiful  valley  of 
the  Leven  from  Dumbarton  to  Loch  Lomond, 
he  paused  to  puzzle  out  the  inscription  on  the 
monument  of  Smollett,  of  whose  works  he  was  as 
great  an  admirer  as  Carlyle,  and  so  wandered 
northward  to  the  Highlands.  Here,  having  made 
up  his  mind  not  to  visit  any  town  or  stay  at  any 
inn,  he  travelled  from  one  farmhouse  to  another, 
meeting  everywhere  with  kindly  and  simple  hos- 
pitality, and  pursued,  at  his  departure,  by  the 
customary  bannocks  and  scones.  A  propos  of 
one  of  these  leave-takings,  occurs  the  only  idyllic 
passage  in  the  "  Memoir"  : — 

"On  one  occasion,  I  was  detained  all  day  and 

blown,  not  with  the  breath,  but  by  a  pair  of  bellows  fixed  under 
the  left  arm. — Brockett's  "  Glossary." 


IV.] 


<  wanderjahre: 


41 


all  night  at  a  house  of  this  kind,  in  listening  to 
the  tunes  of  a  young  man  of  the  family  who 
played  well  upon  the  Scottish  pipes.  I,  in  turn, 
whistled  several  Tyneside  tunes  to  him  ;  so  that 
we  could  hardly  get  separated.  Before  my 
departure  next  day,  I  contrived  by  stealth  to 
put  some  money  into  the  hands  of  the  children. 
I  had  not  got  far  from  the  house  till  I  was  pur- 
sued by  a  beautiful  young  woman,  who  accosted 
me  in  i  badish '  English,  which  she  must  have  got 
off  by  heart  just  before  she  left  the  house,  the 
purport  of  which  was  to  urge  my  acceptance  of 
the  usual  present.  This  I  wished  to  refuse  ;  but, 
with  a  face  and  neck  blushed  with  scarlet,  she 
pressed  it  upon  me  with  such  sweetness — while  I 
thought  at  the  same  time  that  she  invited  me  to 
return — that  (I  could  not  help  it)  I  seized  her,  and 
smacked  her  lips.  She  then  sprang  away  from 
me,  with  her  bare  legs,  like  a  deer,  and  left  me 
fixed  to  the  spot,  not  knowing  what  to  do.  I 
was  particularly  struck  with  her  whole  handsome 
appearance.  It  was  a  compound  of  loveliness, 
health,  and  agility.     Her  hair,  I  think,  had  been 


42 


THOMAS  BEWICK, 


[chap. 


flaxen  or  light,  but  was  tanned  to  a  pale  brown  by 
being  exposed  to  the  sun.  This  was  tied  behind 
with  a  ribbon,  and  dangled  down  her  back  ;  and, 
as  she  bounded  along,  it  flowed  in  the  air.  I  had 
not  seen  her  while  I  was  in  the  house,  and  felt 
grieved  because  I  could  not  hope  ever  to  see  her 
more." 

He  left  Scotland  in  a  Leith  sloop,  arriving  at 
Newcastle  on  the  12th  of  August  1776.  The 
passage  from  Leith  to  Shields  was  an  exceedingly 
bad  one,  and  it  is  characteristic  of  his  kindness  of 
heart  that  during  the  whole  of  the  time,  although 
worn  out  for  want  of  sleep,  he  tended  a  poor  little 
baby,  which  had  been  put  into  his  bunk  for  secu- 
rity during  the  utter  prostration  of  its  mother. 

After  remaining  long  enough  in  Newcastle 
to  earn  the  money  for  his  journey,  he  took  a  berth 
in  a  collier  for  London,  where  he  arrived  in 
October.  In  London  he  had  numerous  friends. 
The  Gregsons,  his  old  schoolmaster's  sons,  and 
distant  connections  as  well,  were  established  there. 
William  Gray,  too,  was  a  bookbinder  in  Chancery 
Lane  ;  and  there  were  others  besides.    He  got 


IV.] 


<  wanderjahre: 


43 


work  at  once  from  Isaac  Taylor,  the  master  of 
another  Newcastle  acquaintance,  and  also  from 
the  beforementioned  Thomas  Hodgson,  then  a 
printer  and  publisher  in  George  Court,  Clerken- 
well.  Mr.  Atkinson  also  says  he  worked  "  with 
a  person  of  the  name  of  Cole,"  of  whom,  as  a 
wood-engraver,  Chatto  could  subsequently  find 
no  trace.1  It  is  possible,  however,  that  this  is  a 
mistake  for  Coleman,  the  Society  of  Arts  prize- 
man, who,  as  already  pointed  out,  survived  until 
1807.  Be  this  as  it  may,  notwithstanding  his 
facilities  for  obtaining  employment,  Bewick  soon 
began  to  weary  for  St.  Nicholas's  steeple  and 
"  Canny  Newcassel."  London  had  few  charms 
for  him, — it  was  too  huge,  too  gloomy,  too  full  of 
extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty.  With  many  of 
his  fellow- workmen  he  was  out  of  sympathy  ;  they 
called  him  "  Scotchman,"  and  he  despised  them 
as  cockneys.    The  result  was,  that  in  spite  of  the 

1  Redgrave,  however,  mentions  two  engravers  on  copper  of 
this  name.  One  of  them — B.  Cole — executed  most  of  the  large 
plates  for  Maitland's  "  London,"  and  copied  for  the  "  Grand 
Magazine  of  Magazines,"  1759,  the  curious  frontispiece  designed 
by  Pope  himself  to  the  "  Essay  on  Man." 


44 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


remonstrances  of  his  principal  patrons,  he  resolved 
to  return  to  his  northern  home,  not  so  much  — 
as  Mackenzie  in  his  "  History"  would  have  us 
believe  —  because  he  was  "disgusted  with  the 
vanity,  arrogance,  and  selfishness  of  the  wood 
engravers  in  the  proud  Metropolis,"  since  those 
objectionable  qualities  are  not  confined  to  any 
class  or  town,  but  because  he  was  hungering  for 
his  "  fitting  environment  " — the  Tyne-side,  the  old 
folks  at  Cherryburn,  and  the  simple  country  plea- 
sures that  he  loved.  He  told  a  friend  that  he 
would  rather  enlist  than  be  tied  to  live  in  London  ; 
and,  years  after,  the  feeling  was  as  strong  as  ever. 
Writing  in  April  1803  to  one  of  the  Gregsons, 
he  says  : 

"  I  wonder  how  you  can  think  turmoiling 
yourself  to  the  end  of  the  Chapter,  and  let  the 
opportunity  slip,  of  contemplating  at  your  ease 
the  beauties  of  Nature,  so  bountifully  spread  out 
to  enlighten,  to  captivate  and  to  cheer  the  heart 
of  man — for  my  Part,  I  am  still  of  the  same  mind 
that  I  was  in  when  in  London,  and  that  is,  I  would 
rather  be  herding  sheep  on  Mickley  bank  top  than 


IV.] 


<  WANDERJAHRE. 9 


45 


remain  in  London,  although  for  doing  so  I  was  to 
be  made  the  Premier  of  England." 

Thus,  after  brief  trial,  ended  Bewick's  Wander- 
jahre.  He  returned  to  Newcastle,  taking  up  his 
abode  as  before  at  Hatfield's,  and  accepting  such 
engraving,  either  on  wood,  silver,  or  copper,  as 
came  in  his  way.  He  had  not  been  long  at 
work  on  his  own  account,  when  propositions  were 
made  to  him  to  enter  into  partnership  with  his  old 
master,  Mr.  Beilby.  This,  by  the  intermediation 
of  a  friend,  was  brought  about,  though  not  without 
some  misgivings  on  Bewick's  part.  He  took  his 
brother  John,  then  a  lad  of  seventeen,  as  his 
apprentice,  and  the  old  weekly  visits  to  Cherry- 
burn  were  resumed  in  company.  For  eight  years 
these  were  continued  in  all  weathers,  winter  and 
summer,  fair  and  foul.  Often  he  had  to  wade  a 
pool  at  the  outset,  and  sometimes  the  river  at  the 
end.  But  by  this  time  his  constitution  was  so 
hardened  by  temperance  and  exercise  that  neither 
heat  nor  cold  had  much  effect  on  him.  And  the 
severities  of  the  winter  were  amply  compensated 
by  the  delights  of  the  other  seasons  when  the 


\ 


46  THOMAS  BE  WICK,  [chap. 

valley  of  the  Tyne  put  on  all  its  beauties,  and 
he  could  watch  the  succession  of  plants  and  wild 
flowers,  and  the  flight  of  birds  and  insects.  Then 
again,  at  this  period  he  had  the  fullest  enjoyment 
of  his  sole  diversion  —  fishing,  to  the  praise  of 
which  he  has  devoted  one  of  his  happiest  and 
most  enthusiastic  pages  : 

' '  Well  do  I  remember  mounting  the  stile 
which  gave  the  first  peep  of  the  curling  or  rapid 
stream,  over  the  intervening,  dewy,  daisy-covered 
holme — boundered  by  the  early  sloe,  and  the  haw- 
thorn-blossomed hedge — and  hung  in  succession 
with  festoons  of  the  wild  rose,  the  tangling  wood- 
bine, and  the  bramble,  with  their  bewitching 
foliage — and  the  fairy  ground — and  the  enchant- 
ing music  of  the  lark,  the  blackbird,  the  throstle, 
and  the  blackcap,  rendered  soothing  and  plaintive 
by  the  cooings  of  the  ringdove,  which  altogether 
charmed,  but  perhaps  retarded,  the  march  to  the 
brink  of  the  scene  of  action,  with  its  willows,  its 
alders,  or  its  sallows — where  early  I  commenced 
the  day's  patient  campaign.  The  pleasing  excite- 
ments of  the  angler  still  follow  him,  whether  he  is 


IV.] 


<  WANDERJAHRE. ' 


47 


engaged  in  his  pursuits  amidst  scenery  such  as  I 
have  attempted  to  describe,  or  on  the  heathery 
moor,  or  by  burns  guttered  out  by  mountain 
torrents,  and  boundered  by  rocks  or  gray  moss- 
covered  stones,  which  form  the  rapids  and  the 
pools  in  which  is  concealed  his  beautiful  yellow 
and  spotted  prey.  Here,  when  tired  and  alone,  I 
used  to  open  my  wallet  and  dine  on  cold  meat 
and  coarse  rye  bread,  with  an  appetite  that  made 
me  smile  at  the  trouble  people  put  themselves  to 
in  preparing  the  sumptuous  feast ;  the  only  music 
in  attendance  was  perhaps  the  murmuring  burn, 
the  whistling  cry  of  the  curlew,  the  solitary  water- 
ouzel,  or  the  whirring  wing  of  the  moor  game.  I 
would,  however,  recommend  to  anglers  not  to  go 
alone ;  a  trio  of  them  is  better,  and  mutual  assist- 
ance is  often  necessary."1 

1  This  last  piece  of  advice  is  at  variance  with  the  final  words 
of  the  first  patroness  of  fishing  in  England.  "  Whanne  ye  pur- 
poos  to  goo  on  your  disportes  in  fysshyng,"  says  Dame  Juliana 
Berners  (if  we  may  still  call  her  so),  "  ye  woll  not  desyre  gretly 
many  persones  wyth  you,  whyche  myghte  lette  you  of  your  game. 
And  thenne  ye  maye  serue  God  deuowtly  in  sayenge  affectuously 
youre  custumable  prayer.  .  .  .  And  all  those  that  done  after 
this  rule  shall  haue  the  blessynge  of  god  &  saynt  Petyr,  whyche 


43 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


In  1785,  Bewick's  mother,  father,  and  eldest 
sister  died,  and  the  walks  to  Cherryburn  came  to 
an  end.  In  the  following  year  he  was  married  to 
Miss  Isabella  Elliot  of  Ovingham,  one  of  the  little 
girls  whom  he  had  "  plagued  "  in  his  unregenerate 
boyhood.  He  was  then  living  at  the  Forth,  a  large 
piece  of  public  ground  near  St.  Mary's  Hospital,  in 
a  house  which  had  been  previously  tenanted  by  Dr. 
Hutton,  part  of  whose  furniture  he  had  purchased. 
It  was  a  "fine,  low,  old-fashioned"  building, situated 
in  what  was  afterwards  known  as  Circus  Lane  (so 
probably  called  from  the  Amphitheatre  erected  in 
the  Forth  in  1789),  and  having  a  long  garden 
extending  almost  to  the  old  Town  Wall.  From 
the  windows  could  be  seen  the  ancient  semi-cir- 
cular bastions  known  respectively  as  Gunner  or 
Gunnerton  Tower  and  West  Spital  Tower.  Of 
Gunnerton  Tower  there  is  a  little  picture  in  one 
of  the  tailpieces  to  the  "  Water  Birds/'  and  it 
is  stated  that  the  adventurous  youngster  who  is 
scaling  its  crumbling  sides  for  jackdaws'  nests  (in 

he  theym  graunte  that  wyth  his  precyous  blood  vs  boughte." — 
"  The  Treatyse  of  Fysshynge  wyth  an  Angle,"  Pickering's  reprint, 
1827,  p.  40. 


IV.] 


<  WANDERJAHRE. ' 


49 


the  original  sketch  he  has  a  bright  blue  coat)  is 
intended  for  Bewick  himself.  West  Spital  Tower 
had  been  turned  into  a  dwelling-place,  where  lived 
Mr.  Beilby  and  his  family.  Bewick  was  an  en- 
thusiastic florist,  and  especially  fond  of  roses.  His 
garden,  as  may  be  guessed,  was  a  great  pleasure 
to  him ;  and  his  picturesque  red  nightcap,  en- 
circled by  the  fumes  of  his  contemplative  "church- 
warden," might  often  be  detected  there  on  Sunday 
afternoons. 


TAILPIECE.     (FROM  FERGUSON'S  "  POEMS,"  1814. 


E 


CHAPTER  V. 


"gay's  fables,"  "select  fables." 

For  many  years  after  the  termination  of  his 
apprenticeship,  Bewick  appears,  by  his  own 
account,  to  have  been  fully  employed  upon  the 
business  of  the  firm,  which  consisted  chiefly  of 
work  for  silversmiths,  watchmakers,  and  hard- 
waremen.  Much  time  was  also  occupied  in  seal- 
cutting  ;  but  engraving  on  wood,  as  is  clear  from 
the  small  number  of  acknowledged  works  between 
1774  and  1784,  must  have  been  the  exception 
rather  than  the  rule  of  his  trade.  Among  the 
books  belonging  to  this  date  is  the  well-known 
"Tommy  Trip's  History  of  Beasts  and  Birds," 
published  by  Saint  in  1779,  which,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  supposed  by  Atkinson  and  others  to 
have  prompted  the  "Quadrupeds"  and  "Birds," 


chap,  v.]    '  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  <  SELECT  FABLES:     5 1 


has  acquired  a  factitious  reputation  with  collectors. 
A  limited  reprint  of  this  was  issued  by  Mr.  Pear- 
son in  1867.  It  is  also  probable  that  Bewick 
executed  a  few  cuts  when  in  London  for  Hodg- 
son's "Hieroglyphick  Bible/'  which  appeared  about 
this  time.  This  again  was  a  book  for  children 
with  emblematical  cuts  of  select  scenes  from  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments.  Then  there  is  the 
"  Lilliputian  Magazine,"  the  letterpress  of  which 
Mr.  Pearson  boldly  attributes  to  Goldsmith.  It 
was  published  in  1783  by  T.  Carnan,  the  successor 
of  Goldsmith's  friend  Newbery,  but  had  probably 
been  printed  earlier  by  Saint  at  Newcastle.1  The 
two  volumes,  however,  with  which  we  are  most 
concerned  during  this  period  are  the  "  Fables  by 

1  The  following  passage  respecting  "  Tommy  Trip "  and 
Goldsmith  is  taken  from  one  of  Miss  Jane  Bewick's  letters  to  Mr. 
Edward  Ford,  of  Old  Park,  Enfield,  and  has  been  kindly  com- 
municated to  us  by  that  gentleman  : — 

"  My  sister  lately  drew  my  attention  to  the  passage  you  quote 
in  the  £  Vicar  of  Wakefield  5  (Goldsmith's  charming  little  puff  [in 
chapter  xviii.]  of  his  children's  books,  published  by  Newbery), 
6  Tommy  Trip  and  his  Dog  Jowler,'  and  6  Woglog  the  Giant.' 
Well  do  I  remember  the  little  book — amongst  many  charming 
Newberys  still  preserved,  that  treasure  has  disappeared.  We 
had  it  before  we  could  read.  The  book  contained  many  cuts  of 
animals  (a  crocodile  among  the  rest),  the  descriptions  of  which 


52 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


the  late  Mr.  Gay"  of  1779,  and  the  "Select 
Fables"  of  1784,  both  of  which  were  printed  and 
published  by  Saint.  In  these,  rather  than  the 
foregoing,  interesting  as  those  are  from  the  collec- 
tor's point  of  view,  Bewick's  work  began  its  true 
development,  and  they  alone  constitute  his  real 
beginnings. 

The  illustrations  to  "Gay's  Fables,"  it  has 
been  stated,  had  been  begun  during  Bewick's 
apprenticeship.  In  advertising  them  Saint  re- 
ferred to  the  "finely  engraved  frontispiece"  and 
"very  curious  cuts,"  some  of  which  had  "gained 
the  premium  of  the  Royal  Society  [w]."  The 

were  probably  compiled  by  Goldsmith.  The  cuts  must  have 
been  executed  while  my  father  was  in  London. 

"  I  have  often  heard  my  father  tell  that,  when  he  was  very 
young,  a  stranger  travelling  on  foot,  and  dressed  in  a  sky-blue 
coat,  with  immensely  large  cuffs,  called  at  Cherryburn,  where  he 
had  some  refreshment.  Whilst  resting,  he  conversed  with  my 
grandmother,  and  when  he  left  she  observed  to  her  sister  Hannah : 
'  That  is  no  common  person.5  The  impression  made  on  the 
child  (Goldsmith  was  sure  to  have  noticed  the  little  black-eyed 
boy)  was  so  strong  that  the  first  time  he  saw  a  portrait  of  Gold- 
smith he  felt  certain  that  it  was  the  poet  himself  who  had  called 
in.  One  may  suppose  the  fare  offered  to  have  been  eggs  and 
bacon  with  home-brewed  birch-wine,  which  my  grandmother  used 
to  make  by  tapping  the  birch  trees." 


v.]       <  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  <  SELECT  FABLES:  53 


"  finely  engraved  frontispiece  "  was  a  poor  copper- 
plate by  Beilby  of  the  monument  which  Gay's 
patrons,  the  Queensberrys,  had  erected  to  him  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  and  it  was  manifestly  copied 
from  Scotins  engraving  after  Gravelot  in  the  Lon- 


THE  HOUND  AND  THE  HUNTSMAN.     (FROM  "gay's  FABLES,"  1779.) 


don  edition  of  1738.  The  "curious  cuts  "  were 
sixty-seven  in  number,  not  including  thirty-three 
vignettes.  Of  the  five  approved  by  the  "Society  of 
Arts,"  the  "Old  Hound"  ("The  Hound  and  the 
Huntsman")  is  the  only  one  which  has  been  identi- 
fied. The  others,  probably  executed  at  different 
times  between  1773  and  1779,  are  of  very  various 


54 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


merit.  Many  of  them  plainly  reproduce  the  com- 
positions of  William  Kent,  Wootton  the  animal 
painter,  and  Gravelot,  in  the  first  editions  of  the 
two  series  of  "  Gay's  Fables,"  issued  by  Tonson 
and  Knapton  in  1727  and  1738  respectively. 
Whether  Bewick  made  use  of  these  books  directly, 
or  followed  some  intermediate  copyist,  such  as 
the  unknown  artist  of  Strahan's  complete  edition 
of  1769,  is  immaterial.  But  a  comparison  of  his 
illustrations  with  the  earlier  ones  establishes  a 
remarkable  relationship,  especially  in  the  more 
allegorical  or  mythological  subjects.  In  the  un- 
pleasant "  Universal  Apparition,"  the  design  is 
almost  exactly  similar  to  that  of  1727  ;  the  same 
remark  applies,  more  or  less,  to  the  11  Miser  ayd 
Plutus,"  "  Pythagoras  and  the  Countryman,"  the 
"  Monkey  who  had  seen  the  World,"  and  others. 
In  all  of  these,  as  a  rule,  Bewick  has  the  ad- 
vantage in  drawing  and  accessory,  although  his 
delineations  of  nude  figures  and  personifications 
of  any  kind  are  never  his  happiest  work.  In  the 
"  Farmers  Wife  and  the  Raven,"  and  the 
"  Courtier  and  Proteus,"  though  still  mindful  of 


v.] 


<  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  '  SELECT  FABLES: 


55 


the  earlier  plate,  he  produces  something  infinitely- 
better.  The  former,  with  its  bridge  and  castle  in 
the  background,  and  the  hopeless  collapse  of 
"  blind  Ball"  and  his  rider  in  front,  is  one  of  the 
best  pictures  in  the  book ;  and  the  persuasive 
man  of  the  world,  with  his  hand,  like  that  of  his 
prototype,  on  his  heart,  might  have  stept  from  a 
canvas  by  Hogarth.  So  might  the  really  admir- 
able figure  of  the  bullying  and  belligerent  virago 
with  arms  akimbo,  in  the  "  Scold  and  the  Parrot." 
In  the  "  Hare  and  Many  Friends"  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  first  illustrator,  Wootton,  is  almost 
entirely  discarded  ;  and  the  gasping,  pathetic 
posture  of  "  Poor  honest  Puss"  appealing  vainly 
to  the  calf  is  worthy  of  a  Landseer  in  little.  Now 
and  then,  again,  Bewick's  knowledge  of  domestic 
animals  or  his  keen  eye  for  character  overmaster 
him  entirely,  and  Jie  breaks  away  from  the  model 
altogether.  "  The  Hound  and  the  Huntsman" 
is  a  case  in  point ;  it  might  have  been  sketched  at 
Cherryburn.1    Other  examples  in  this  class  are 

1  An  original  pencil  sketch  for  "  The  Hound  and  the  Hunts- 
man "  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Edward  Ford,  who  obtained  it 
from  Miss  Jane  Bewick. 


56 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


"  The  Man,  the  Cat,  the  Dog,  and  the  Fly/'  and 
"  The  Squire  and  his  Cur."  These  two  are  not 
so  much  illustrations  of  Gay  as  little  pictures  in 
genre.  In  one  the  country  gentleman,  mottle- 
faced  and  condescending,  listens  with  dignity  to 
the  tenant,  who, 

"  ....  in  a  bondman's  key, 
With  'bated  breath,  and  whispering  humbleness," 

addresses  his  patron  ;  in  the  other  an  old  officer, 
with  his  hanger  and  cocked  hat  on  the  wall — a 
true  contemporary  of  Le  Fevre  and  "  My  Uncle 
Toby  " — is  talking  to  his  dog  and  cat  in  a  room 
whose  conspicuous  decoration  is  a  print  of  a  naval 
engagement.  These,  as  far  as  we  can  ascertain, 
are  Bewick's  own,  and  they  are  of  the  best. 

Generally  speaking,  the  printing  of  all  these 
cuts,  even  in  the  earlier  editions  (and  it  is  abso- 
lutely useless  to  consult  any  others),  is  weak  and 
unskilful.  The  fine  work  of  the  backgrounds  is 
seldom  thoroughly  made  out,  and  the  whole  im- 
pression is  blurred  and  unequal.  Nevertheless, 
as  book  illustrations,  in  detail,  composition,  and 
especially  in  expression,  they  are  far  beyond  any- 


v.]       <  GA  Y'S  FABLES^  <  SELECT  FABLES:  57 


thing  of  the  kind  that  had  appeared  before,  ex- 
cept a  few  cuts  by  Bewick  himself,  to  which  we 
now  come. 

The  other  book  of  importance  belonging  to 
this  period  is  the  "  Select  Fables,"  published  by 
Saint  in  1784.  Its  full  title  is  "  Select  Fables, 
in  Three  Parts.  Part  I.  Fables  extracted  from 
Dodsley's.  Part  II.  Fables  with  Reflections,  in 
Prose  and  Verse.  Part  III.  Fables  in  Verse. 
To  which  are  prefixed,  The  Life  of  /Esop  ;  and 
an  Essay  upon  Fable.  A  New  Edition,  im- 
proved. Newcastle:  Printed  by  and  for  T.  Saint. 
mdcclxxxiv."  In  reference  to  the  words  "a  new 
edition,  improved,"  it  will  be  remembered  that,  as 
already  stated  on  p.  32,  Saint  had  in  1772  issued  a 
small  number  of  "  Select  Fables  "  at  the  end  of  the 
"  Moral  Instructions  of  a  Father  to  his  Son,"  etc., 
*the  cuts  to  which  were  said  by  Miss  Bewick  to 
have  been  her  father's  early  work.  Of  this  book 
Saint  brought  out  a  third  edition  in  1775  5  anc^  *n 
1776  he  issued  a  volume  of  "  Select  Fables  "  only, 
of  which  the  " Select  Fables"  of  1784  is  obviously 
an  elaboration.    In  fact,  the  title-pages  are  almost 


53 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


textually  identical,  and  the  same  emblematic 
vignette  is  used  for  both.  The  volume  of  1776 
contains  one  hundred  and  fourteen  small  and 
poorly  executed  cuts,  and,  at  the  end  of  the  book, 
in  illustration  of  the  " Fables  in  Verse  (Part  III.)," 
are  fourteen  larger  and  better  cuts,  with  borders. 
The  smaller  cuts,  which  include  those  in  the 
"  Moral  Instructions,"  are,  we  must  perforce 
decide,  by  Bewick.  The  "  Treatise  on  Wood- 
Engraving,"  indeed,  speaking  of  them  in  a  foot- 
note (p.  480,  edition  1861),  says  that  "  Bewick 
always  denied  that  any  of  them  were  of  his  engrav- 
ing." But,  even  if  we  had  not  Miss  Bewick's 
authority  for  believing  to  the  contrary,  this  is 
contradicted  by  the  book  itself,  for  no  less  than 
thirteen  of  the  remaining  fourteen  cuts  with  borders 
are  reproduced  in  the  "  Select  Fables"  of  1784, 
the  illustrations  of  which  are  attributed  to  Bewick 
by  common  consent.  It  must  therefore  be  con- 
jectured either  that  Mr.  Chatto  misunderstood 
Bewick  or  his  informant,  or  that  he  had  not  seen 
the  very  rare  edition  of  1776,  which  is  now  before 
us.     So  again,  when  Mr.  J.  G.  Bell  and  Mr. 


v.]       <  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  <  SELECT  FABLES:  59 


Hugo  speak  of  the  "  miserable "  illustrations  of 
the  earlier  edition  of  the  u  Select  Fables,"  it  must 
be  concluded  that  they  were  not  aware  that  the 
edition  of  1776  contained  a  number  of  the  cuts 
afterwards  printed  in  the  volume  of  1784.  The 
smaller  cuts  are  indifferent  enough  ;  but  the  four- 
teen at  the  end  are  quite  as  good  as  those  in  the 
"  Gay's  Fables"  published  in  1779.  It  would  be 
tedious  to  carry  this  purely  bibliographical  dis- 
cussion farther ;  but  it  so  far  disposes  of  one 
troublesome  passage  in  the  "  Memoir,"  which 
states  that,  during  his  apprenticeship,  Bewick 
was  at  work  on  the  "  Select  Fables."  That, 
before  1774,  he  could  have  been  working  at  the 
edition  published  in  1784  is  improbable;  but 
when  it  is  explained  that  he  prepared  cuts  for  the 
edition  of  1776,  the  words  are  no  longer  difficult 
to  understand. 

Most  of  the  illustrations  to  the  " Select  Fables" 
of  1784  show  a  very  marked  advance  upon  those 
to  the  "Gay."  The  animals  are  better  drawn, 
and  the  backgrounds  and  details  more  carefully 
studied.    But  the  greatest  improvement  is  in  the 


6o 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


grouping.  This,  and  the  arrangement  of  black 
and  white,  are  much  more  skilful  and  effective 
than  before.  As  before,  however,  Bewick  seems 
to  have  been  contented  to  take  an  earlier  work 
for  the  basis  of  his  designs.  There  can  be  but 
little  doubt  that  the  one  used  was  the  "  Fables  of 
yEsop  and  Others/'  translated  by  Samuel  Croxall, 
D.D.,  sometime  Archdeacon  of  Hereford.  This 
was  one  of  the  most  popular  books  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  First  published  by  Tonson  and 
Watts  in  1722,  by  1798  there  had  been  no  fewer 
than  sixteen  editions.  In  the  "  Treatise  on  Wood- 
Engraving"  the  author,  discussing  this  collection 
at  some  length,  appears  to  think  that  the  illus- 
trator, who  deserves  a  better  fame  than  he  has 
obtained,  was  a  certain  E.  Kirkall,  to  whose  book- 
decorations  Pope  refers  in  the  "Dunciad" — 

"  In  flow'rs  and  pearls  by  bounteous  Kirkall  dress'd  "  ; 

and  w4io,  we  may  add,  enjoys  the  unenviable  dis- 
tinction of  having  pirated  Hogarth's  "  Harlot's 
Progress "  before  that  ill-used  artist  could  issue 
his  own  prints.  Mr.  Chatto  also  points  out  that 
many  of  Croxall's  cuts  are  apparently  reversed 


v.]       <  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  <  SELECT  FABLES:        6 1 


copies  of  copperplates  by  Sebastian  le  Clerc  in  an 
edition  of  "y£sop,"  published  circa  1694.1  It  is 
possible,  however,  that  the  real  originals  may  be 
looked  for  nearer  home,  since  comparison  of  the 
Archdeacon's  book  with  the  fine  old  folio  "^Esop" 


THE  FOX  AND  THE  GOAT.     (FROM  SEBASTIAN  LE  CLERC.) 


of  Francis  Barlow,  once  "  eminent  in  this  line  of 
Fowl  and  Beasts,"  and  sold  (as  the  engraved 
title-page  has  it)  "  at  his  House,  The  Golden 

1  We  have  failed  to  trace  this  edition.  Jombert's  "  Catalogue 
Raisonne  "  of  le  Clerc's  works,  1774,  i.  281,  does  indeed  refer 
to  a  set  of  "  22  petits  ovales  en  travers,  sans  le  titre,"  in  illus- 
tration of  "^Esop's  Fables,"  but  goes  on  to  say  expressly  :  "Cette 
suite  .  .  .  n'a  servi  a  aucun  livre." 


62 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


Eagle,  In  New  Street,  near  Shoo- Lane,  1665," 
reveals  unmistakable  affinities  between  the  two, 
though  it  would  perhaps  be  hazardous  to  declare 
that  Croxall's  designer  copied  from  Barlow  rather 
than  le  Clerc.    A  point  of  more  material  interest 


THE  VIPER  AND  THE  FILE.     (FROM  CROXALL'S  "  FABLES,"  1722.) 


in  connection  with  Croxall  is,  whether  the  cuts 
were  engraved  on  wood  or  type-metal.  Bewick,  in 
the  "  Introduction  "  to  the  later  "  ^Esop  "of  1818, 
affirms  the  latter,  though  other  authorities  think 
it  unlikely.  Between  experts  it  is  dangerous  to 
decide;  but  wre  are  disposed  to  agree  with  Bewick. 
After  carefully  comparing  Croxall's  first  edition  of 


v.]       <  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  <  SELECT  FABLES:  63 


1722  with  his  tenth  of  1775,  we  are  able  to  affirm 
de  visu  that  the  cuts  in  the  latter,  as  impressions, 
are  to  the  full  as  good  as  those  in  the  former. 
It  would  have  been  difficult,  we  imagine,  in  the 
early  days  of  the  revival  of  woodcut-printing  to 


THE  VIPER  AND  THE  FILE.     (FROM  "  SELECT  FABLES,"  1784.) 


show  many  books  of  which  this  could  be  said,  and 
we  conceive  it  to  be  greatly  in  favour  of  the  theory 
that  the  illustrations  to  Croxall  were  from  engrav- 
ings "on  metal  in  the  manner  of  wood."  That 
this  was  practised  is  plain  from  the  fact  that  the 
Society  of  Arts  twice  gave  premiums  to  William 
Coleman  for  work  of  this  very  class. 


64 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


To  return,  however,  to  Bewick  and  the  "  Select 
Fables  "  of  1 784.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  show 
in  detail  in  what  the  likeness  to  Croxall  consists, 
as  a  couple  of  examples  will  amply  suffice — the  cuts 
to  the  "  Viper  and  the  File,"  and  the  "  Young  Man 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  AND  THE  SWALLOW.     (FROM  CROXALL's  "  FABLES,"  1722.) 


and  the  Swallow."  In  the  former  Bewick  has 
closely  followed  the  earlier  design.  But  the  ad- 
vantage in  execution,  in  black  and  white,  and  in 
the  superior  fidelity  of  the  accessories  {e.g.  the 
vice)  is  wholly  on  his  side.  So  are  the  improver 
ments  in  the  relative  proportions  of  the  different 
objects — the  viper  of  the  old  illustrator  for  size 


v.] 


'  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  '  SELECT  FABLES: 


65 


might  be  a  youthful  boa  constrictor.  In  the 
"  Young  Man  and  the  Swallow"  the  deviations 
are  more  apparent  than  the  resemblances,  and 
little  of  similarity  remains  but  in  the  attitude 
of  the  hero.     The  swallow  which,  in  Croxall, 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  AND  THE  SWALLOW.     (FROM  "SELECT  FABLES,"  1784.) 


assumes  the  proportions  of  a  barn-door  fowl  is, 
in  Bewick,  reduced  to  reasonable  dimensions. 
Croxall's  spendthrift  has  literally  denuded  him- 
self ;  but  he  of  Bewick's  drawing,  like  a  civilised 
eighteenth -century  rake,  has  only  pawned  his 
linen.  Again,  beyond  the  bare-boughed  tree 
there  is  no  particular  suggestion  of  winter  in 

F 


66 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


Croxall ;  but  in  Bewick  there  is  obvious  ice  and 
men  sliding  upon  it,  while  he  has  given  to  the 
chief  figure  a  look  of  nose-nipped  and  shivering 
dilapidation  which  is  wholly  absent  from  its  model. 
These  specimens  will  show  how  Bewick  dealt 
wTith  Croxall  when  he  employed  him  as  a  basis. 
But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  "  Gay,"  there  are  num- 
erous instances  where  the  invention  appears  to  be 
wholly  his  own,  and  they  are  generally  the 
happiest  in  the  book.  Take,  for  example,  the 
charming  little  pictures  of  the  "Wolf  and  the 
Lamb,"  and  the  "Proud  Frog."  Or  (to  choose 
some  fables  not  given  in  Croxall  at  all)  let  us  turn 
to  the  "Hounds  in  Couples,"  the  " Beggar  and  his 
Dog,"  the  "Collier  and  the  Fuller."  This  last, 
especially,  is  a  little  chef-d'oeuvre  for  truth  to 
nature.  The  fuller  with  his  bare  legs  and  beater  ; 
the  grimy  but  not  unfriendly  collier  ;  the  linen 
bleaching  in  long  rows  in  the  field  behind,  and 
the  colliery  works  on  the  hill,— to  say  nothing  of 
St.  Nicholas's  spire  in  the  distance, — all  these  go 
to  make  up  a  whole  not  afterwards  excelled  by 
any  of  the  famous  tailpieces.    Bewick  was  familiar 


v.]       <  GA  Y'S  FABLES;  <  SELECT  FABLES:  67 


with  fullers  and  colliers,  with  frogs  and  dogs,  and 
what  he  knew  intimately  he  could  draw  as  no 
other  man  could. 

In  contrasting  Bewick's  work  with  that  of  the 
unknown  illustrator  of  Croxall,  and  the  illustrators 
of  "  Gay's  Fables,"  it  can  scarcely  be  necessary 


THE  EAGLE  AND  THE  CROW.     (FROM  "  SELECT  FABLES,"  1784.) 


to  point  out  that  we  have  no  sort  of  intention  to 
depreciate  Bewick's  gifts.  That  he  should  have 
chosen  to  work  in  a  measure  upon  the  lines  of 
some  of  his  predecessors  is  no  reproach  to  him, 
since  it  is  only  what  many  greater  men  have  done 
before  and  after  him.  "It  was  not  the  subject 
treated"  (as  Mr.  Lowell  says  finely  of  Chaucer 
in  similar  case),  "  but  himself,  that  was  the  new 


68 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


thing."  He  brought  to  his  designs  an  indi- 
viduality, a  personal  character,  which  is  wholly 
absent  from  his  prototypes.  His  reproductions 
of  animal  life  prove  conclusively  how  infinitely 
superior  in  apprehension  and  insight  he  was  to 
Barlow  and  Wootton,  professed  and  popular 
animal  painters;  while  as  a  delineator  of  character 
and  humanity  we  must  seek  for  his  equals  in  ranks 
far  higher  than  that  of  the  charlatan  William 
Kent.  But  his  illustrations  to  these  fables  are 
interesting  in  another  way.  Those  who  admire 
his  draughtsmanship  have  often  asked  themselves 
how  he  obtained  his  proficiency  as  an  artist,  for 
he  certainly  did  not  acquire  it  from  "  Copelands' 
Ornaments."  The  only  answer  given  by  his  family 
is  that  "  he  used  to  go  out  and  look  at  things,  and 
then  come  home  and  draw  them."1  That  is  to 
say,  he  shared  the  instinctive  perceptive  faculty 

1  Bewick's  daughters,  it  may  be  observed,  could  give  but 
little  definite  information  respecting  the  growth  of  their  father's 
genius.  Their  appreciation  of  it  was  affectionate  rather  than 
enlightened  ;  and  they  appear  to  have  shrunk  from  admitting 
that  he  could  possibly  be  indebted  to  anything  but  his  own  inborn 
creative  power,  even  where  natural  objects  were  concerned. 


v.]        <  GA  Y'S  FABLES,1  1  SELECT  FABLES:  69 

and  eye-memory  of  Hogarth  and  Wilkie ;  but 
this  scarcely  explains  his  skill  in  combining  and 
arranging  his  material.  If,  however,  we  bear  in 
mind  that  he  spent  so  much  of  his  early  life  in 
adapting,  correcting,  and  modernising  the  designs 
of  others,  it  requires  no  further  argument  to  show 
that  he  studied  in  a  school  of  composition  which, 
whatever  its  restrictions,  was  yet  of  a  practical 
and  serviceable  kind. 


TAILPIECE.     (FROM  FERGUSON'S  "  POEMS,"  1814.) 


CHAPTER  VI. 

JOHN  BEWICK. 

In  designing  and  engraving  the  foregoing  "  Gay's 
Fables  "  (1779)  and  "Select  Fables"  (1784),  it 
has  been  asserted  that  Bewick  was  assisted  by  his 
younger  brother  John,  whom  he  had  taken  as  an 
apprentice  in  1777.  In  the  "Advertisement"  to 
an  edition  of  the  "Select  Fables/'  published  by 
Emerson  Charnley  of  Newcastle  in  1820, — an 
edition  which,  if  it  was  not  issued  with  Thomas 
Bewick's  approval,  was  obviously  issued  within 
his  knowledge, — this  statement  as  regards  those 
fables  in  particular  is  definitely  made  ;  and  it  is 
repeated  by  Bell  and  Chatto  respecting  both  col- 
lections. Hugo  also  follows  it  with  regard  to 
the  "Select  Fables."  On  the  other  hand  Atkin- 
son's sketch  is  completely  silent  as  to  such  a  colla- 


CHAP.  VI.] 


JOHN  BEWICK. 


7i 


boration,  although,  by  his  own  showing,  the  writer 
was  acquainted  with  Charnley's  book  ;  and  there 
is  no  reference  to  it  in  the  short  account  of  John 
Bewick  which  appears  in  Mackenzie's  "  History 
of  Northumberland. "  In  Bewick's  "  Memoir," 
too,  where  some  acknowledgment  to  this  effect, 
if  needful,  might  have  been  reasonably  expected, 
there  is  not  a  word  upon  the  subject.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  what  material 
aid  the  younger  brother  could  have  rendered  to 
the  elder  in  the  "  Gay's  Fables,"  seeing  that  he 
was  only  in  the  second  year  of  his  apprenticeship 
when  it  was  first  published.  To  the  "  Select 
Fables,"  the  argument  of  inexperience  does  not 
apply  with  equal  force  ;  but  it  may  be  noted  that 
John  Bewick's  work,  for  many  years  subsequent 
to  1784,  will  not,  either  in  draughtsmanship  or 
engraving,  sustain  a  comparison  with  the  illustra- 
tions in  that  volume.  Moreover — though  this  is 
of  minor  importance — for  at  least  two  years  previ- 
ous to  its  appearance,  John  Bewick  had  been 
resident  in  London.  Upon  the  evidence  of  the 
books  themselves — we  may  add — it  is  impossible 


72 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


to  arrive  at  a  decision  ;  but  the  existence  of  this 
moot  question  may  be  our  excuse  for  introducing 
here  some  brief  account  of  John  Bewick's  less 
doubtful  works. 

According  to  the  " Memoir  of  Thomas  Bewick," 
John  Bewick  continued  in  his  apprenticeship  for 
about  five  years,  when  his  brother  "gave  him  his 
liberty,"  and  he  left  Newcastle  for  London.  Here 
he  found  immediate  and  active,  though  not  lucra- 
tive employment,  chiefly  on  blocks  for  children's 
books.  Hugo's  "Catalogue"  gives  us  the  titles 
of  some  of  these — "The  Children's  Miscellany" 
(by  Day  of  "Sandford  and  Merton"  fame);  the 
"  Honours  of  the  Table  ;  or,  Rules  for  Behaviour 
during  Meals;"  the  "  History  of  a  Schoolboy;" 
the  "  New  Robinson  Crusoe,"  and  so  forth, — 
publications  which  no  doubt  were  highly  popular 
with  the  "little  Masters  and  Misses"  in  frill-collars 
and  mob-caps,  who  resorted  to  Mr.  Stockdale's  in 
Piccadilly,  or  Mr.  Newbery's  at  the  "  Bible  and 
Sun  "  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.  The  date  of  the 
"  Robinson  Crusoe  "  is  1788,  and  many  of  its  cuts 
are  signed.     But  the  first  work  of  real  importance 


VI.] 


JOHN  BE  WICK. 


73 


attributed  to  John  Bewick  is  an  edition  of  Gay's 
44  Fables/'  printed  in  the  same  year  for  J.  Buck- 
land  and  others,  in  which,  with  minor  variations 
and  some  exceptions,  the  earlier  designs  of  Thomas 
Bewick  are  followed.  This  book  affords  an 
opportunity  of  comparing  the  brothers  on  similar 


ROBIN  HOOD  AND  MAID  MARIAN.     (FROM  RITSON's  "  ROBIN  HOOD,"  1795.) 


ground,  and  the  superiority  of  the  elder  is  incon- 
testable. Next  to  this  comes  a  volume  which  has 
usually  been  placed  first,  the  "  Emblems  of  Mor- 
tality," published  by  T.  Hodgson  in  1789.  This 
is  a  copy  of  the  famous  "  Icones"  or  "  Imagines 
Mortis"  of  Holbein,  from  the  Latin  edition  issued 
at  Lyons  in  1 547  by  Jehan  Frellon,  "Soubz  l'escu  de 


74 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


Coloigne,"  with  a  few  supplementary  cuts  from  the 
French  edition  of  1562.  Hugo  associates  Thomas 
Bewick  with  John  in  this  work  ;  and  we  have 
certainly  seen  an  edition  which  has  both  names  on 
the  title-page.    The  early  writers,  nevertheless, 


ROBIN  HOOD  AND  LITTLE  JOHN.     BY  T.  BEWICK.    (FROM  RITSON's  "  ROBIN  HOOD,"  1795.) 


assign  it  to  John  Bewick  alone  ;  and  this  view  is, 
in  our  opinion,  confirmed  by  the  following  extract 
from  a  letter  of  Thomas  to  John,  published 
by  Mr.  Hancock  of  Newcastle  in  the  "  Natural 
History  Transactions  of  Northumberland,"  etc., 
for  1877.  "  I  am  much  pleased,"  says  Thomas 
Bewick,  "  with  the  Cuts  for  '  Death's  Dance,'  and 


VI.] 


JOHN  BEWICK. 


75 


wish  much  to  have  the  book  when  it  is  done.  I 
am  surprized  that  you  would  undertake  to  do 
them  for  6s.  each.  You  have  been  spending 
your  time  and  grinding  out  your  eyes  to  little 
purpose  indeed.  I  would  not  have  done  them  for 
a  farthing  less  than  double  that  sum.  ...  I  am 
glad  to  find  that  you  have  begun  on  your  own 
bottom,  and  I  would  earnestly  recommend  you  to 
establish  your  character  by  taking  uncommon  pains 
with  what  work  you  do."  The  quotation  seems 
to  indicate  that  John  Bewick  had  set  up  on  his 
own  account  in  November  1787,  the  date  of  the 
letter  to  which  the  above  is  an  answer.  It  gives 
an  idea  besides  of  the  prices  paid  for  wood-engrav- 
ing both  in  London  and  Newcastle,  which,  as  may 
be  seen,  were  on  anything  but  a  liberal  scale.1 

Even  in  these  days  of  Amand-Durand  fac- 
similes, the  "  Emblems  of  Mortality"  is  a  praise- 
worthy memento  of  those  marvellous  woodcuts 

1  Sometimes,  too,  they  do  not  seem  to  have  been  paid  at  all. 
At  a  sale  a  few  years  ago  there  was  sold  an  autograph  letter  of 
Thomas  Bewick  to  Sir  Richard  Phillips  of  the  "Million  of  Facts," 
in  which  reference  was  made  to  a  bill  for  "  Botanical  Cuts  "  that 
had  been  outstanding  for  eleven  years  ! 


76 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


which,  as  we  are  now  taught  to  believe,  the  obscure 
Hans  Lutzelburger  engraved  after  Holbein's  de- 
signs. In  detail,  John  Bewick's  copies  vary  con- 
siderably from  the  originals  ;  and,  in  one  instance, 
that  of  the  " Creation,"  where  the  earlier  illustrator 
has  represented  the  first  person  of  the  Trinity  in 


THE  DEATH  OF  ROBIN  HOOD.     (FROM  RITSON's  "  ROBIN  HOOD,"  1795.) 


a  papal  tiara,  his  imitator,  by  editorial  desire,  has 
substituted  a  design  of  his  own.  But  the  spirit  of 
the  old  cuts  is  almost  always  fairly  preserved,  and, 
considering  the  hasty  and  ill-paid  character  of  the 
work,  its  general  fidelity  to  Holbein  is  remarkable. 
After  "  Death's  Dance  "  come  a  little  group  of 
books,  chiefly  intended  for  the  education  of  children. 


VI.] 


JOHN  BE  WICK. 


77 


Of  these  it  is  impossible  to  give  any  detailed 
account,  nor  is  it  needful,  since  they  have  all  a 
strong  family  resemblance.  The  two  first,  "  Pro- 
verbs Exemplified"  (1790)  and  the  "  Progress  of 
Man  and  Society"  (1791)  are  due  to  the  excellent 
but  wearisome  Dr.  Trusler,  who,  with  the  best 


THE  RECOMPENSE  OF  VIRTUE.     (FROM  THE  "  BLOSSOMS  OF  MORALITY,"  1796.) 

opportunities,  has  the  honour  of  being  the  worst 
of  Hogarth  commentators.  The  former  book  is 
sufficiently  described  by  its  title  ;  the  latter  is  a 
kind  of  modern  version  of  the  old  Latin  and  high 
Dutch  "  Orbis  Pictus"  of  Comenius,  published  at 
Amsterdam  in  1657.  Both  of  these  books  are 
undoubtedly  illustrated  by  John  Bewick  alone, 


78 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


whose  name  is  given  in  the  preface  to  the  "  Pro- 
verbs." Besides  these  there  are  the  "  Looking 
Glass  for  the  Mind"  (1792),  the  charming  little 
"  Tales  for  Youth"  (1794),  "  Robin  Hood"  (1795), 
and  the  " Blossoms  of  Morality"  (1796). 

The  appearance  of  the  "  Blossoms  of  Morality  " 
was  for  some  time  delayed  in  consequence  of  the 
illness  of  the  artist,  and  long  before  it  was  pub- 
lished, John  Bewick  was  sleeping  in  Ovingham 
Churchyard.  His  health  had  been  early  impaired 
by  the  close  confinement  of  the  Metropolis,  and 
though  a  visit  to  Cherryburn  seems  to  have 
partially  restored  him,  he  was  finally  obliged 
to  return  to  his  native  air  in  the  summer  of 
1795,  and  shortly  afterwards  died  of  consump- 
tion. In  the  year  of  his  death  was  published 
a  sumptuous  edition  of  the  "  Poems  of  Gold- 
smith and  Parnell,"  due  to  the  enterprise  of  that 
energetic  Novocastrian,  William  Bulmer,  of  the 
"  Shakespeare  Printing  Office,"  whom  his  contem- 
poraries fondly  likened  to  the  Bodonis  and  Elze- 
virs of  old  ;  and  the  preface  proudly  sets  forth  the 
excellences  of  its  type,  its  printing,  its  Whatman 


VI.] 


JOHN  BE  WICK. 


79 


paper,  and  its  embellishments.1  To  this  book 
John  Bewick  contributed  one  cut,  drawn  and  en- 
graved by  him  in  illustration  of  the  well-known 
passage  in  the  "  Deserted  Village  "  respecting  the 
old  watercress  gatherer.  He  is  also  understood 
to  have  designed  two  of  the  vignettes  and  one 


ROBIN  HOOD  AND  LITTLE  JOHN.     (FROM  RITSON's  "  ROBIN  HOOD,"  1795.) 


of  the  tailpieces.  During  the  last  months  of  his 
life  he  was  engaged  in  making  sketches  on  the 

1  George  III.  is  said  to  have  declined  to  believe  that  the  cuts 
were  engraved  on  wood,  and  to  have  requested  to  be  allowed  to 
assure  himself  of  the  fact  by  inspecting  the  original  blocks.  But 
in  these  early  days  of  woodcut  art,  even  a  George  might  be 
forgiven  for  not  being  a  connoisseur.  One  of  the  best  of  the 
tailpieces  represents  His  Majesty  hunting  the  stag  at  Windsor. 


8o 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


block  for  the  "  Fabliaux"  of  Le  Grand,  translated 
by  Way  (1796);  and  for  an  edition  of  Somer- 
vile's  "  Chase/'  issued  by  Bulmer  in  the  same 
year.  These  were  chiefly  engraved  by  Thomas 
Bewick,  who,  he  says  in  the  "  Memoir,"  com- 
pleted the  drawings  for  the  "  Chase"  after  his 
brother's  death.  "  The  last  thing  (he  adds  sorrow- 
fully) that  I  could  do  for  him  was  putting  up  a 
stone  to  his  memory  at  the  west  end  of  Ovingham 
Church,  where  I  hope,  when  my  '  glass  is  run 
out,'  to  be  laid  down  beside  him." 

As  is  generally  the  case  with  those  who  die 
young,  it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  speak  of  John 
Bewick's  merits  as  an  artist  and  engraver.  Much 
of  his  work  bears  evident  signs  of  haste,  as  well 
as  of  an  invention  which  was  far  in  advance  of  his 
powers  of  execution.  In  the  earlier  books  this  is 
especially  noticeable.  He  had  plainly  a  keen  eye 
for  character,  and  considerable  skill  in  catching 
strongly  -  marked  expression.  In  the  "  Proverbs 
Exemplified,"  many  of  the  little  groups,  though 
rudely  rendered,  are  excellently  "felt,"  and  might 
easily  be  elaborated  into  striking  studies.    It  is 


VI.] 


JOHN  BE  WICK. 


8.1 


not  unnatural,  perhaps,  that  Dr.  Trusler  should 
compare  his  illustrator  to  Hogarth  ;  but  in  such 
designs  as  "  All  is  not  Gold  that  Glitters,"  and 
"  Scald  not  your  Lips  with  Another  Man's  Pot- 
tage," the  comparison  is  not  wholly  untenable. 
His  animals,  too,  are  often  admirable — witness  the 


DOMESTIC  SCENE.     BY  J.  BEWICK.     (SOURCE  UNKNOWN.) 


popular  prowling  cat  in  the  "  Tales  for  Youth," 
the  hunting  scenes  in  the  "Chase"  {e.g.  the  "  Hunts- 
man and  Hounds,"  the  "Home  of  the  Otter"),  and 
many  of  the  vignettes  in  the  children's  books,1 
while  he  shared  with  his  brother,  though  in  a  far 

1  A  large  proportion  of  these,  however,  are  mere  adaptations 
of  Thomas  Bewick's  work. 

G 


82 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


less  degree,  the  art  of  contriving  effective  back- 
grounds of  rock-work  and  foliage.  One  distinctive 
quality  he  seems  to  have  possessed,  which  is  not 
to  be  found  in  Thomas  Bewick,  the  quality  of 
grace — a  grace  artificial  indeed,  as  was  much  of  the 


LITTLE  ANTHONY.     (FROM  THE  "  LOOKING-GLASS  FOR  THE  MIND,"  I792.) 

grace  of  the  eighteenth  century,  yet  not  without 
its  charm.  Whether  he  caught  this  from  Stothard 
and  the  novel  illustrators  of  the  period  we  know 
not ;  but  there  are  many  examples  of  it  in  his 
work,  notably  in  his  treatment  of  children.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  trio  of  scholars  in  the  "  Progress 
of  Man,"  who,  with  their  hands  on  their  hearts, 


THE  SAD  HISTORIAN.  To face  page  83. 

Drawn  and  Engraved  by  John  Bewick. 
(From  "  Poems  by  Goldsmith  and  Parnell,"  1795.) 


VI.] 


JOHN  BE  WICK. 


33 


are  "  making  a  leg"  to  their  nightcapped  and 
dressing  -  gowned  preceptor.  Or  take  again  the 
charming  picture  in  the  "  Looking  Glass  for  the 
Mind,"  of  the  anxious  little  fellow  who  is  stand- 
ing on  a  chair  to  look  at  the  barometer.  As  an 
engraver  John  Bewick  does  not  in  any  way  equal 
his  brother.  His  manner  is  flatter,  more  conven- 
tional, less  happy  in  the  distribution  of  its  light 
and  shade.  In  his  later  work,  however,  he  im- 
proved greatly  in  this  respect,  as  may  be  seen  by 
reference  to  the  "  Tales  for  Youth,"  which  contain 
some  of  his  best  engraving,  and  to  the  watercress 
gatherer  of  the  "  Deserted  Village." 

Only  one  portrait  of  John  Bewick  is  known 
to  exist,  and  that  is  a  crayon  by  George  Gray, 
now  in  the  Newcastle  Natural  History  Society's 
Museum.  Personally  he  seems  to  have  been  a 
young  man  of  considerable  wit  and  vivacity,  and 
very  popular  with  his  associates  —  a  popularity, 
if  we  may  judge  from  certain  passages  in  the 
"  Memoir,"  not  without  its  peril  in  the  eyes  of 
his  graver  elder  brother.  ^  He  would  not,  as  he 
called  it,  be  dictated  to  by  me ;  but  this  I  per- 


84 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


sisted  in  till  it  made  us  often  quarrel,  which  was 
distressing  to  me,  for  my  regard  for  him  was  too 
deeply  rooted  ever  to  think  of  suffering  him  to 
tread  in  the  paths  which  led  to  ruin,  without  en- 
deavouring to  prevent  it.  To  the  latest  day  of 
his  life,  he  repented  of  having  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 
my  advice  ;  and  as  bitterly  and  sincerely  did  he 
acknowledge  the  slighted  obligations  he  owed  me. 
He  rued ;  and  that  is  as  painful  a  word  as  any  in 
the  English  language."  Something  in  this,  no 
doubt,  must  be  allowed  for  the  Spartan  austerity 
of  the  disciple  of  Lewis  Cornaro,  and  it  is  not 
probable  that  poor  John  Bewick's  errors  went 
farther  than  a  certain  smartness  in  costume,  and 
occasional  convivial  excesses. 

At  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  engaged  upon 
the  block  of  Cherryburn,  afterwards  used  as  a 
frontispiece  to  the  "  Memoir."  He  did  not  live 
to  complete  it ;  and  it  was  eventually  finished  by 
Thomas  Bewick.  The  original  sketch,  probably 
made  much  earlier,  together  with  his  punch-ladle 
and  glass,  some  water-colour  drawings,  and  other 
relics,  is  carefully  preserved  at  the  old  home  by 


vi.] 


JOHN  BE  WICK. 


§5 


his  grandnieces,  who  still  speak  affectionately  of 
their  "  Uncle  John's"  talents  and  amiability.  At 
the  recent  Bewick  sale  another  memento  of  him 
came  under  the  hammer.    This  was  a  walking- 
stick,  containing  a  hautboy,  with  which  (as  per 


LEONORA  AND  ADOLPHUS.     (FROM  THE  "  LOOKING-GLASS  FOR  THE  MIND,"  I792.) 

catalogue)  he  is  said  to  have  "  amused  himself  in 
his  summer-evening  strolls  about  Hornsey  and 
the  banks  of  the  Thames."  In  the  last  months  of 
his  life,  it  should  be  added,  he  alternated  engrav- 
ing with  teaching,  being  employed  as  drawing- 
master  at  the  "  Hornsey  Academy,"  then  kept  by 
a  Mr.  Nathaniel  Norton.    Two  or  three  unfinished 


86 


THOMAS  BEWICK.  [chap.  vi. 


sketches  made  by  him  at  this  time — one  of  which 
shows  his  pony  and  his  lodgings — are  included 
in  the  Bewick  bequest  to  the  British  Museum. 
Another,  dated  1795,  the  year  of  his  death,  has 
a  touch  of  pathos.  It  represents  his  "  intended 
house  "  on  the  water  bank  at  Eltringham. 


TAILPIECE.     (FROM  RITSON's  "  ROBIN  HOOD,"  I795-) 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"  QUADRUPEDS,"  "  BIRDS." 

From  the  work  of  Thomas  Bewick  previous  to 
1785,  and  more  especially  from  the  two  volumes 
of  "  Fables,"  it  is  evident  that  he  is  most  success- 
ful in  depicting  those  phases  of  animal  life  with 
which  he  was  familiar,  or  in  making  such  selec- 
tion as  his  genius  prompted  of  the  characteristics, 
whimsical  or  pathetic,  of  the  humanity  about  him. 

"  That  is  best  which  lieth  nearest, 
Shape  from  that  thy  work  of  art," 

never  received  more  striking  confirmation  than  at 
Bewick's  hands.  "  Hercules  and  Jupiter,"  "  Time 
and  Fortune,"— figures  in  which  the  allegorists  of 
the  day  would  have  delighted, — become  under  his 
pencil  mere  lumbering  and  futile  unrealities,  ill  at 
ease  in  their  nakedness,  and  not  to  be  credited  under 


88 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


any  system  of  theology.  But  set  him  down  to  draw 
you  a  group  of  startled  hares,  a  hungry  beggar 
watched  by  an  equally  hungry  dog,  a  boy  stung 
by  a  nettle,  or  a  brace  of  snarling  hounds  — 
"  impares  formas  atque  animos  " — tugging  at  the 
unequal  yoke,  and  he  will  straightway  construct 
you  a  little  picture — spirited,  vivid,  irreproachable 
in  its  literal  fidelity — to  which  you  will  turn  again 
and  again  as  to  the  authentic  record  of  something 
within  your  own  experience,  which  you  seem  to 
have  forgotten,  but  of  which  you  are  glad  to  be 
reminded  once  more.  To  such  an  artist,  so  truth- 
ful, so  dependent  upon  nature,  so  unimaginative 
(in  a  certain  sense  of  the  word),  the  realising  of 
other  men's  ideas  would  be  a  difficult  and  un- 
congenial task.  But  suppose  him  to  find  a  field 
outside  these  conditions,  in  which  he  is  free  to 
exercise  his  abilities  in  a  fashion  most  pleasant  to 
himself,  it  will  follow,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course, 
that  he  will  produce  his  best  work.  This,  in 
effect,  appears  to  have  been  the  case  with  Bewick. 
He  found  his  fitting  field  in  the  "  Quadrupeds  "  and 
4'  Birds,"  and  rose  at  once  to  his  highest  level. 


VII.] 


'quadrupeds;  'birds: 


s9 


The  "  Quadrupeds "  were  begun  soon  after 
the  publication  of  the  "  Select  Fables."  But 
while  working  at  them,  and  before  they  were  pub- 
lished, Bewick  produced  the  large  block  known  as 
the  "  Chillingham  Bull,"  one  of  those  famous  wild 
cattle  of  the  old  Caledonian  breed,  now  nearly 
extinct,  which  Landseer  has  painted,  and  Scott 
has  celebrated  in  the  ballad  of  "  Cadyow  Castle  " — 

"  Through  the  huge  oaks  of  Evandale, 

Whose  limbs  a  thousand  years  have  worn, 
What  sullen  roar  comes  down  the  gale, 
And  drowns  the  hunter's  pealing  horn  ? 

Mightiest  of  all  the  beasts  of  chase, 

That  roam  in  woody  Caledon, 
Crashing  the  forest  in  his  race, 

The  Mountain  Bull  comes  thundering  on." 

The  engraving  was  a  commission  undertaken  in 
the  beginning  of  1789  for  Marmaduke  Tunstall 
of  Wycliffe,  a  local  naturalist  and  collector  ;  and 
in  the  "  Memoir "  Bewick  has  described  some 
of  the  obstacles  he  met  with  in  getting  near  his 
restless  model.  "  I  could  make  no  drawing  (he 
says)  of  the  bull,  while  he,  along  with  the  rest 
of  the  herd,  was  wheeling  about,  and  then  front- 


9o 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


ing  us,  in  the  manner  described  in  the  '  History 
of  Quadrupeds'  (1824,  p.  39).  I  was  therefore 
obliged  to  endeavour  to  see  one  which  had  been 
conquered  by  his  rival,  and  driven  to  seek  shelter 
alone,  in  the  quarryholes  or  in  the  woods  ;  and  in 
order  to  get  a  good  look  at  one  of  this  description, 
I  was  under  the  necessity  of  creeping  on  my 
hands  and  knees,  to  leeward,  and  out  of  his  sight  ; 
and  I  thus  got  my  sketch  or  memorandum,  from 
which  I  made  my  drawing  on  the  wood.  I  was 
sorry  my  figure  was  made  from  one  before  he 
was  furnished  with  his  curled  or  shaggy  neck  and 
mane." 

It  is  said  that  Bewick  considered  this  block 
to  be  his  masterpiece  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the 
bull  with  its  dark  ears  and  muzzle,  its  black-tipped 
horns,  its  sensitive  nostril,  and  milkwhite  hide,  is 
an  exceedingly  handsome  beast.  It  steps  out 
lightly  from  a  little  glade,  and  halts  with  its  head 
turned  distrustfully  toward  the  spectator,  the  thin 
foam  threading  from  its  jaws.  Its  hair  and  hoofs 
are  excellently  given  ;  but  in  these  days  the  back- 
ground and  accessories,  though  minutely  careful 


VII.] 


'QUADRUPEDS,'  'BIRDS: 


9i 


and  conscientious,  would  probably  be  regarded 
as  stiff  and  conventional.  When  engraved  it  was 
doubtless  Bewick's  best  and  most  ambitious  effort ; 
but  there  are  animals  and  birds  in  his  subsequent 
works  with  which  it  can  scarcely  be  compared. 
An  accident,  however,  has  had  the  effect  of  giving 
the  impressions  of  this  block  an  abnormal  value 
with  collectors — the  value  of  extreme  rarity.  After 
a  few  copies  had  been  struck  off  on  parchment  and 
paper,  the  block  was  thoughtlessly  laid  on  a  place 
where  the  rays  of  the  sun  fell  so  directly  upon  it 
that  it  split ;  and  notwithstanding  several  attempts 
to  reunite  it,  it  was  never  possible  to  take  an 
impression  which  did  not  betray  indications  of  the 
fatal  injury.  The  sums  given  for  copies  taken 
before  the  mishap,  without  the  name  and  date, 
and  especially  for  those  on  parchment,  of  which 
there  appear  to  have  been  six,1  are  consequently 

1  There  is  considerable  doubt  about  the  exact  number,  which 
is  one  of  the  cruces  of  the  Bewick  collector.  The  subject  is 
exhaustively  discussed  in.  Mr.  D.  C.  Thomson's  "  Life  and 
Works  of  Thomas  Bewick,"  1882,  ch.  xiii.  We  may  take  this 
opportunity  of  adding  that  much  information,  not  to  be  found 
elsewhere,  is  contained  in  Mr.  Thomson's  attractive  volume. 


92 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


exceptional.  Fifty  guineas  was  paid  at  one  period 
of  its  career  for  that  now  in  the  "  Townsend  Col- 
lection "  at  South  Kensington.  Three  more  of 
the  parchment  copies  were  sold  with  the  "  Hugo 
Collection  "  in  1877.  The  original  block,  also  in 
Mr.  Hugo's  possession,  has  since  passed  into  the 
hands  of  a  gentleman  of  Northumberland.  Before 


THE  OUNCE.     (FROM  THE  "  QUADRUPEDS,"  I790.) 

this,  it  was  cleverly  wedged  in  a  new  frame  of  gun- 
metal,  and  a  limited  number  of  careful  impressions 
were  taken  from  it  on  vellum  and  toned  paper 
for  Mr.  Robinson  of  Pilgrim  Street,  from  whom 
copies,  we  believe,  are  still  to  be  obtained. 

The  account  given  in  the  "  Memoir"  of  the 
"  General  History  of  Quadrupeds,"  like  most  of 
the  portions  of  that  book  which  relate  to  Bewick's 


'QUADRUPEDS,'  'BIRDS: 


93 


work,  is  of  an  exceedingly  meagre  character.  But 
he  had  actually  begun  it  as  early  as  November 
1785,  for  he  was  engraving  the  dromedary  when 
he  first  heard  of  his  fathers  death.  Most  of  the 
cuts  and  vignettes  were  executed  after  the  days 
work  was  over,  and  the  letterpress  was  compiled 
by  Mr.  Beilby,  who  was  "  of  a  bookish  or  read- 
ing turn/'  Bewick  giving  him  what  aid  he  was  of 
his  own  knowledge  able  to  contribute,  "  and  blot- 
ting out,  in  his  manuscript,  what  was  not  truth." 
Such  animals  as  he  knew  (he  says)  were  drawn 
"from  memory  on  the  wood,"  others  were  copied 
from  Buffon,  and  others  again  were  from  speci- 
mens in  travelling  menageries,  first  sketched  from 
memory  and  afterwards  corrected  on  the  wood 
from  the  animals  themselves.  In  a  letter  to  John 
Bewick,  he  speaks  of  the  difficulties  that  beset  him. 
He  cannot  get  a  good  idea  of  the  wolf,  so  contra- 
dictory are  the  reports  of  its  appearance,  and  he  is 
rejoicing  in  the  advent  of  "  a  large  collection  of 
animals  .  .  .  now  on  its  way  to  the  Town."1 

1  This  may  have  been  Gilbert  Pidcock's,  of  whose  well-known 
menagerie  at  Exeter  'Change  there  is  a  water-colour  in  the  Crace 


94 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


In  1790  the  "  General  History  of  Quad- 
rupeds "  was  published  and  sold  rapidly.  A 
second  and  a  third  edition  appeared  in  1791  and 
1792,  and  it  had  reached  an  eighth  in  1824.  Its 
limitations  are  indicated  above.  The  " Bison"  and 
"  Hippopotamus"  would  scarcely,  we  imagine,  ex- 
cite the  admiration  of  Mr.  Zwecker  or  Mr.  Wolf ; 
but  the  dogs,  the  horses,  the  sheep,  the  cows,  leave 
little  to  be  desired.  Excellent,  too,  are  the  "Badger," 
the  "Hedgehog,"  and  the  "  Ferret."  Chatto  is  also 
right  in  the  praise  which  he  gives  to  the  "  Kyloe 
Ox,"  although  our  special  favourites  in  the  book 
are  the  u  Spanish  Pointer"  and  the  staid  "  Old 
English  Hound."  Some  of  the  backgrounds, 
those  to  the  domestic  animals  in  particular,  are 
of  considerable  interest,  and  often  most  skilfully 
contrived  to  give  full  effect  to  the  diversities  of 
fur  and  hide. 

Collection.  In  1799  Bewick  executed  four  large  coarse  cuts  for 
Pidcock,  a  lion,  an  elephant,  a  tiger,  and  a  zebra.  His  own  copies 
of  the  first  two  are  in  the  Newcastle  Natural  History  Society  s 
Museum.  Besides  these  large  wood-blocks  —  it  may  here  be 
added — he  also  engraved  two  minutely- finished  copperplates, 
Hall's  "  Whitley  Large  Ox,"  1789,  and  Spearman's  "  Kyloe  Ox," 
1790.    But  he  attained  no  special  distinction  as  a  chalcographer. 


vil]  'QUADRUPEDS,'  'BIRDS: 


95 


Admirable,  however,  as  was  the  volume  of 
"  Quadrupeds,"  it  was  eclipsed  by  the  two  vol- 
umes of  "  British  Birds."  Here  the  necessity  for 
depending  upon  incorrect  drawings  or  doubtful 


THE  OLD  ENGLISH  HOUND.     (FROM  THE  £<  QUADRUPEDS,"  1790.) 

reports  was  reduced  to  a  minimum  ;  and  Bewick 
set  out  with  the  determination  of  "  sticking  to 
nature  as  closely  as  he  could."  After  much  pre- 
liminary study  of  such  books  on  ornithology  as 
came  in  his  way,  e.g.  Albin's  "  Birds,"  the  old 
"  Histoire  de  la  Nature  des  Oyseaux"  of  Pierre 


96 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


Belon,1  Ray  and  Willoughby,  Pennant  and 
Latham,  he  paid  a  long  visit  to  Wycliffe,  where 
he  remained  for  nearly  two  months  diligently 
copying  the  stuffed  specimens  collected  by  Mr. 
Tunstall.    Upon  returning  to  Newcastle  to  make 


THE  COMMON  BOAR.     (FROM  THE  tl  QUADRUPEDS,"  1790.) 


his  engravings,  he  was  at  some  pains  to  reconcile 
the  discrepancies  between  those  of  his  drawings 

1  "  Belon's  very  old  book,"  as  Bewick  styles  it,  published  "  at 
the  Sign  of  the  Fat  Hen"  ("  In  Pingui  Gallina"),  Paris,  1555,  is 
still  worthy  the  pursuit  of  the  collector,  and  contains  a  "  vast "  of 
quaint  information,  ornithological  and  gastronomic.  Much  of  it 
is  sound  and  valuable,  although  some  of  the  stories  are  of  the  Sir 
John  Mandeville  type.  For  instance,  he  relates  that  "  the  pelican, 
which  builds  its  nest  on  the  ground,  finding  its  young  stung  by  a 
serpent,  weeps  bitterly,  and  piercing  its  own  breast,  gives  its  own 
blood  to  cure  them  " — a  variation  on  the  older  myth.  But  he  is 
beyond  his  age  in  other  things,  for,  like  Mr.  Phil.  Robinson  of  the 
"  Poets'  Birds,"  he  says  a  good  word  for  the  vulture. 


VII.] 


'QUADRUPEDS;  'BIRDS: 


97 


which  had  been  actually  taken  from  nature  and 
those  which  he  had  copied  from  preserved  figures. 
The  result  was  that  in  many  cases  he  set  aside 
what  he  had  done  to  wait  for  newly-shot  birds, 


THE  STARLING.     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  I797«) 


with  which  he  was  liberally  supplied  by  a  few 
enthusiastic  friends.  Several  of  the  sketches  were 
from  life.  The  "  Corncrake,"  for  example,  was 
taken  from  a  bird  which  ran  about  his  own  room, 
and  its  excellent  attitude  was   cleverly  repro- 

H 


98 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


duced  by  Richard  Wingate,  a  famous  bird-stuffer 
of  Newcastle,  in  a  specimen  which  is  still  to  be 
seen  in  that  town.  It  was  probably  at  this  date 
that  Bewick  made  the  majority  of  the  very 
beautiful  water-colour  drawings  exhibited  by  the 
Misses  Bewick  in  London,  and  so  excellently 
annotated  by  Mr.  F.  G.  Stephens,1 — drawings 

1  c<  Notes  on  a  Collection  of  Drawings  and  Woodcuts  by 
Thomas  Bewick,  exhibited  at  the  Fine  Art  Society's  Rooms, 
1880."  We  quote  one  just  and  appreciative  passage  : — "  The 
ruling  element  of  Bewick's  art,  technical  and  inventive,  is  sin- 
cerity. His  extreme  simplicity,  or,  to  be  more  precise,  his 
straightforwardness,  is  but  one  of  the  manifestations  of  this  ever- 
dominant  inspiration.  He  always  drew  what  he  saw,  and  I  think 
it  probable  that  he  never  drew,  or,  what  is  similar,  he  never 
painted,  anything  he  had  not  seen  and  thoroughly  understood. 
The  fund  of  knowledge  thus  secured  and  displayed, — for  it  is  obvi- 
ous to  me  that  he  made  himself  understand  everything  he  thought 
fit  to  draw, — was  employed  at  all  times  and  with  the  utmost  fidelity. 
He  seems  to  have  had  so  much  reverence  for  his  work,  and  so 
much  humility  in  the  face  of  nature,  that  he  became  the  counter- 
part of  another  English  master  in  small,  William  Hunt,  the 
water-colour  painter,  who,  although  one  of  the  first  men  in  the 
world  in  that  peculiar  class,  was  frequently  heard  to  say,  '  I  almost 
tremble  when  I  sit  down  to  paint  a  flower.'  But,  so  far  as  design 
goes,  and  nothing  in  art  is  higher,  Bewick  far  surpassed  Hunt  in 
the  abundance,  as  well  as  in  the  quality,  scope,  richness,  and 
depth  of  his  invention."  There  is  no  indiscretion  in  now  adding 
that  Miss  Bewick's  very  literal  and  filially  indignant  comment 
upon  the  above  was — a  Thomas  Bewick  trembled  none  !  " 


VII.] 


'QUADRUPEDS;  'BIRDS: 


99 


which  revealed  unsuspected,  because  hitherto 
unmanifested,  abilities  as  a  colourist.  This  sup- 
position as  to  their  production  is  confirmed  by 
the  fact  that  the  "  Roller"  and  the  "  Red-Legged 
Crow,"  both  of  which  were  at  Bond  Street,  are 
plainly  copies  of  the  stuffed  examples  still  to  be 
found  in  the  Museum  of  the  Newcastle  "  Literary 
and  Philosophical  Society,"  which  purchased  the 
Wycliffe  collection.  Beyond  the  specimens  pos- 
sessed by  Bewick's  family,  examples  of  his  water- 
colour  work,  however,  appear  to  be  rare.  But 
Mr.  George  D.  Leslie,  R.A.,  has  a  beautiful  king- 
fisher, the  praises  of  which  he  has  written  in  that 
fresh  and  unaffected  book,  "  Our  River." 

The  first  volume  of  the  "  Birds  "  (Land  Birds) 
was  published  in  1797.  It  contained  one  hun- 
dred and  seventeen  birds  and  ninety-one  tail- 
pieces. The  letterpress  was  by  Mr.  Beilby ; 
but  the  proof-sheets,  which  were  in  the  late  Mr. 
Hugo's  collection,  show  that  Bewick's  amend- 
ments and  additions  were  numerous  and  import- 
ant. The  second  volume  (Water  Birds)  appeared 
in  1804.    The  text  to  this,  with  some  assistance 


IOO 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


from  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cotes,  of  Bedlington,  was  pre- 
pared by  Bewick,  whose  partnership  with  Beilby 
had  by  this  time  been  dissolved.  This  volume 
contained  one  hundred  and  one  figures  and  one 
hundred  and  thirty-nine  tailpieces.    Large  addi- 


THE  YELLOW  HAMMER.     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  I797-) 


tions  were  made  to  both  volumes  in  the  succeeding 
issues;  and  in  the  sixth  edition  of  1826  (the  last 
published  during  Bewicks  lifetime),  the  first  con- 
tained one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  figures,  the 
second  one  hundred  and  forty-three,  besides  four- 
teen supplementary  figures  of  foreign  birds.  Other 


VII.] 


'QUADRUPEDS,'  "BIRDS: 


101 


editions  appeared  after  his  death,  but  the  latest 
(the  eighth)  is  that  put  forth  by  Bewick's  son, 
R.  E.  Bewick,  in  April  1847.     In  this,  "  about 


THE  SHORT-EARED  OWL.     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  I797.) 


twenty  additional  vignettes  "  were  inserted  from 
a  series  intended  for  a  projected  "  History  of 
British  Fishes,"  left  unfinished  by  Bewick  at  his 
death ;  the  nomenclature  and  arrangement  of 
Temminck  were  adopted  ;  and  a  synoptical  table 


102 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


of  the  classification  was  added.  This  table  was 
the  work  of  Mr.  John  Hancock,  a  distinguished 
naturalist  of  Newcastle,  to  whom  we  are  indebted 
for  some  assistance  in  preparing  these  pages. 


THE  EGRET.     (FROM  THE  "  WATER  BIRDS,"  1804.) 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  "  Birds"  are 
Bewick's  highwater  mark.  He  worked  in  these 
under  a  conjunction  of  conditions  which  was 
especially  favourable  to  his  realistic  genius.  In 
the  first  place,  he  was  called  upon  not  to  invent 
or  combine,  but  simply  to  copy  nature  with  that 
" curious  eye"  which  slurs  nothing,  striving  only 


VII.] 


'QUADRUPEDS^  'BIRDS: 


103 


to  give  its  full  import  and  value  to  the  fold  of  a 
feather,  the  tenderest  markings  of  breast  and 
back,  the  most  fugitive  accidents  of  attitude  and 
appearance.    Then,  having  made  his  drawing  in 


THE  COMMON  SNIPE.     (FROM  THE  "  WATER  BIRDS,"  1804.) 


colour  or  otherwise,  he  was  not  obliged  to  see  it 
altered  or  degraded  in  its  transference  to  the 
wood-block  at  the  hands  of  another  person. 
Between  his  original  study  and  the  public  he 
was  his  own  interpreter.  In  confiding  his  work 
to  the  wood  he  was  able  to  select  or  devise  the 
most  effective  methods  for  rendering  the  nice 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


varieties  of  plumage,  from  the  lightest  down  to 
the  coarsest  quill-feather,  to  arrange  his  back- 
ground so  as  to  detach  from  it  in  the  most  telling 


THE  TAWNY  OWL.     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  1797.) 


way  the  fine-shaped,  delicate-shaded  form  of  his 
model,  and  to  do  all  this  with  the  greatest  economy 
of  labour,  the  simplest  array  of  lines.  Finally, 
besides  being  the  faithfullest  of  copyists,  and  the 
most  skilful  of  wood-engravers,  he  was  able  to 


vii.]  'QUADRUPEDS;  'BIRDS:  105 

bring  to  the  representation  of  "  these  beautiful  and 
interesting  aerial  wanderers  of  the  British  Isles" 
(as  he  styles  them)  a  quality  greater  than  either 
of  these,  that  unlessoned  insight  which  comes  of 
loving  them,  the  knowledge  that  often  elevates  an 
indifferent  workman  into  an  artist,  and  without 
which,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  efforts  of  some  of 
Bewick's  followers,  the  most  finished  technical 
skill  and  most  highly  trained  trick  of  observation 
produce  nothing  but  an  imago  mortis.  These  birds 
of  Bewick, — those  especially  that  he  had  seen  and 
studied  in  their  sylvan  haunts, — are  alive.  They 
swing  on  boughs,  they  light  on  wayside  stones  ; 
they  flit  rapidly  through  the  air  ;  they  seem  almost 
to  utter  their  continuous  or  intermittent  cries ; 
they  are  glossy  with  health  and  freedom  ;  they 
are  alert,  bright-eyed,  watchful  of  the  unfamiliar 
spectator,  and  ready  to  dart  off  if  he  so  much  as 
stir  a  finger.  And  as  Bewick  saw  them,  so  we  see 
them,  with  their  fitting  background  of  leaf  and 
bough,  of  rock  or  underwood, — backgrounds  that 
are  often  studies  in  themselves.  Behind  the 
rook  his  brethren  stalk  the  furrows,  disdainful  of 


io6 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


the  scarecrow,  while  their  black  nests  blot  the 
trees  beyond ;  the  golden  plover  stands  upon  his 
marshy  heath  ;  the  robin  and  the  fieldfare  have 
each  his  appropriate  snow-clad  landscape ;  the 
little  petrel  skims  swiftly  in  the  hollow  of  a  wave. 
Not  unfrequently  the  objects  in  the  distance  have 
a  special  biographical  interest.  To  the  left  of  the 
magpie  is  one  of  those  worn-out  old  horses,  with 
whose  sufferings  Bewick  had  so  keen  a  sympathy. 
It  has  apparently  broken  its  neck  by  falling  over 
a  little  cliff,  part  of  the  rails  of  which  it  has  carried 
with  it  in  its  descent.  At  the  back  of  the  guinea- 
hen  is  the  artist  himself,  seated  on  a  wall  ;  in  the 
cut  of  the  blackbird  is  a  view  of  Cherryburn. 
Details  of  this  kind  lead  us  insensibly  to  another 
feature  of  Bewick's  books  on  Natural  History,  of 
which  we  have  not  yet  spoken, — the  numerous 
vignettes  or  tailpieces  at  the  ends  of  the  chapters. 
These,  says  his  contemporary  Dovaston,  were 
"  always  his  favourite  exercise."  "The  bird  or 
figure  he  did  as  a  task ;  but  was  relieved  by 
working  the  scenery  and  background  ;  and  after 
each  figure  he  flew  to  the  tailpiece  with  avidity, 


VII.] 


'quadrupeds;  'birds: 


107 


for  in  the  inventive  faculty  his  imagination  re- 
velled.'' Some  extravagance  of  phrase  abated, 
this  statement  may  be  accepted  as  showing  in 
which  direction  Bewick's  artistic  inclinations  were 
strongest ;  and  the  wide  popularity  of  these  little 
pictures  is  another  confirmation  of  Mr.  Matthew 
Arnold's  dictum  about  "  pleasure  in  creating." 
But  they  deserve  a  chapter  to  themselves. 


GRACE  BEFORE  MEAT.     (FROM  THE  "  WATER  BIRDS,"  1804.) 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  TAILPIECES. 

Much  in  these  famous  tailpieces  is  of  that  endur- 
ing and  universal  character  which  belongs  to  no 
time  or  place.  But  the  pilgrim  from  Newcastle 
to  Prudhoe  (the  nearest  point  to  Ovingham)  is 
often  reminded  on  the  road  that  he  is  in  Bewick's 
country.  Passing  out  of  the  Central  Railway 
Station,  with  the  river  Tyne  to  his  left,  he  sees 
the  "  coal-staiths  "  and  fleets  of  "  keels,"  and  the 
closed  furnace-doors  with  the  smoke  curling  from 
their  crevices,  as  Bewick  saw  and  drew  them. 
Farther  on,  at  Wylam,  they  are  rook-shooting, 
and  there  are  sea-gulls  wheeling  above  the  sandy 
reaches.  While  he  is  punted  across  the  river 
from  Prudhoe 1  he  himself  seems  to  be  taking 

1  Now,  of  course,  he  crosses  the  bridge.  The  above  was 
written  in  1 88 1 . 


chap,  viii.]  THE  TAILPIECES.  109 

part  in  a  tailpiece,  and  the  spare  boat-stower 
stuck  in  the  stones  of  the  little  pier,  and  the  long 
loops  of  net  which  are  drying  in  the  sun,  help  to 
strengthen  this  belief.  As  he  climbs  the  steep 
stairway  on  the  opposite  bank  and  notes  the  tide- 
dragged  look  of  the  branches  near  the  water,  he 
is  reminded  of  the  frequent  floods,  and  especially 
of  that  great  flood  of  November  1 77 1,  which  not 
only  tore  down  the  arches  of  the  old  bridge  at 
Newcastle,  but  swept  away  the  humbler  boat- 
house  at  Ovingham.  In  the  parsonage  gate  he 
recognises  an  old  friend  of  the  "  Select  Fables," 
and  he  looks  curiously  at  the  picturesque  church- 
porch  where  the  farmers  son  from  Cherryburn 
once  made  his  "  chalky  designs/'  Crossing  the 
fields  again  toward  Eltringham  Ferry  a  hundred 
aspects  of  hedge  and  river-side  seem  friendly  and 
familiar.  The  same  ploughman  is  following  the 
same  team  as  in  the  vignette  of  "Justissima 
Tellus  " ;  the  same  sheep  are  huddling  in  the  fold, 
watched  by  the  same  vigilant  collie  ;  and  when 
he  has  traversed  the  Tyne  again,  and  finds  him- 
self among  the  quaint  north-country  stiles  and 


I  IO 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


bickering  bums,  with  the  water- wagtail  busy 
among  the  stones,  and  the  farm-pigeon  dropping 
down  to  drink,  the  illusion  is  well-nigh  perfect. 
If,  in  addition  to  these,  he  comes  suddenly  upon 
a  detachment  of  geese  with  their  cackling  leader 
at  their  head,  marching  solemnly  waterward  in 
Indian  file,  or  is  startled  by  an  old  horse  tearing 
hungrily  at  the  green  leaves  of  a  young  tree,  he 
has  no  longer  any  doubt,  and  believes  every  line 
and  stroke  that  Bewick  ever  put  to  paper. 

The  rural  life,  and  the  scenes  among  which 
Bewick  was  brought  up,  naturally  play  a  large 
part  in  this  attractive  collection.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  "  Land  Birds"  is  that  well-known 
picture  of  a  u  Farmyard/'  the  drawing  for  which 
was  exhibited  in  the  Bond  Street  collection,  and 
is  an  extraordinarily  minute  study  of  the  sub- 
ject. A  woman  winnows  grain  in  front ;  a  man 
carries  a  sack  to  the  barn.  Cocks  and  hens, 
ducks,  turkeys,  and  geese,  and  even  those  unin- 
vited guests,  the  starlings  and  sparrows,  are 
clearly  distinguishable  in  the  foreground.  A  sow 
enters  the  yard  with  her  litter  ;  a  dog  dozes  on 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


1 1 1 


the  dunghill.  Nailed  against  the  by  re- wall  are  a 
magpie,  a  crow,  and  a  heron ;  over  these  is  a 
swallow's  nest,  or  sparrow -bottle.     Pigeons  fly 


A  FARMYARD.     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  1797.) 


above  the  ricks  against  the  dark  background  of 
the  trees,  and  there  is  a  flight  of  fieldfares  in  the 
air.  The  same  microscopic  truthfulness  is  ex- 
hibited in  a  dozen  other  designs.  Now  it  is  a 
bent  old  fellow  breaking  stones  by  the  roadside, 


I  12 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


with  his  dog  watching  his  coat  and  flask ;  or 
another  gingerly  crossing  the  snow-covered  ice 
astride  a  branch  for  safety  ;  a  cow  that  has  broken 
through  a  fence  to  get  to  the  water,  or  a  girl  pump- 
ing upon  a  tramp's  feet.  We  have  mentioned 
only  the  principal  figures  :  these  are  always  set  in 


POACHERS  TRACKING  A  HARE  IN  THE  SNOW.     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  I797.) 


their  appropriate  landscape,  and  surrounded  with 
illustrative  accessory.  The  man  crossing  the  ice, 
for  instance,  is  watched  by  a  dog  in  the  back- 
ground, who  is  evidently  too  wary  to  follow  him. 

Next  to  the  pictures  of  rural  life  come  those 
which  illustrate  the  sports  of  the  field.  There 
are  the  cruel  greyhounds  pressing  hard  upon  the 
hare  ;  there  are  the  poachers  who  track  her  in 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


113 


the  snow ;  there  are  the  sportsmen  who  wade  the 
river,  or  cross  it  upon  stilts,  or  reach  perilously  to 
secure  their  floating  quarry,  or  fraternise  at  dinner- 
time with  their  dogs.  But  it  is  the  angler's  craft 
which  is  most  richly  represented,  and  Bewick  has 
drawn  a  score  of  pictures  of  this,  his  favourite 
pastime.  He  shows  us  the  steady-going  old 
Waltonian  "  fettling  "  his  hooks  under  a  bank  ;  the 
drenched  fisherman  watching  his  "  set  gads  "  in 
the  shelter  of  a  tree  ;  the  salmon-spearer  with  his 
many-pronged  "leister."  Then  there  are  the 
humours  and  accidents  of  the  game.  There  is 
the  excellent  but  infirm  enthusiast  who  fishes 
from  his  pony's  back  while  his  footman  waits 
hard  by  with  a  landing  net ;  the  angler  who  is 
terrified  by  a  turnip-headed  "  bogle,"  and  the 
angler  who  has  hooked  a  swallow  on  the  wing  ; 
the  angler  who  has  tumbled  into  the  stream  ;  the 
angler  who  is  taking  bait  from  a  dead  dog,  to  the 
disgust  of  a  companion,  who  is  prudently  holding 
his  nose.  And  in  all  these,  the  little  glimpses  of 
copse  and  thicket,  of  brown  pool  and  wrinkling 
water,  are  enough  to  make  a  man  wish  (if  he  has 

1 


H4 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


forgotten  the  experiences  of  Washington  Irving!) 
to  become  an  angler  on  the  spot ;  and  they  seem 
to  find  their  most  restful  expression  in  the  charm- 
ing vignette  to  which  the  artist  has  affixed  the 
old  Virgilian  motto  adopted  by  Shenstone  at  the 
Leasowes — "Flumina  amem,  sylvasque  inglorius." 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "  REINDEER."     (FROM  THE  "QUADRUPEDS,"  I791.) 


In  many  of  the  designs  already  spoken  of, 
although  they  are  chiefly  concerned  with  the 
accurate  representation  of  natural  objects,  there 
are  sly  strokes  of  drollery.  This  brings  us  to 
a  special  class  in  these  vignettes,  namely,  those 
which  are  purely  and  simply  humorous, — little 
compositions  which  would  have  delighted  Hogarth, 
and  hardly  dishonoured  his  genius.  Such  are  the 
bottle-nosed  and  bewigged  coachman  on  the  bob- 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


tailed  coach-horse  who  is  following  "little  master" 
on  his  pony ;  the  black  sweep  eating  white  bread 
and  butter  ;  the  old  woman  (Bewick  is  unrivalled 
at  old  women)  attacked  by  geese  ;  the  depressed 
and  Callotesque  procession  with  the  dancing  dogs 
and  bear ;  the  blind  fiddlers  led  by  a  ragged  boy 
and  fiddling  without  an  audience ;  the  old  husband 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "WOODCHAT."     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  1797.) 


carrying  his  young  wife  and  child  across  the  river 
on  his  back ;  the  drunken  miller,  who,  on  King 
George's  birthday,  has  been  cupping  it  "till  the 
world  go  round,"  and  now  lies  helpless  on  his 
back,  still  feebly  beating  on  the  reeling  earth.1 
Many  of  these  deserve  a  page  of  commentary. 
It  would  be  easy,  for  example,  to  write  at  length 

1  This  is  said  to  have  been  a  well-known  character,  one 
Rennoldson,  a  miller  at  Jesmond. 


n6 


THOMAS  BE  WICK, 


[chap. 


upon  such  a  theme  as  that  which  appears  at  page 
106  of  vol.  ii.  of  the  "Birds."1  Two  tramps  have 
halted  at  the  gate  of  a  pretty  cottage  garden, 
where  the  mistress  is  hanging  out  the  clothes. 
They  have  turned  away  empty  and  angry,  leav- 
ing the  gate  open,  and  through  this  the  inmates 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "  COMMON  CART-HORSE."     (FROM  THE  "  QUADRUPEDS,"  I79I-) 


of  the  adjoining  farmyard  are  successively  mak- 
ing their  appearance.  The  hens  have  already 
occupied  the  lawn  (and  the  spotless  linen) ;  the 
little  pigs  are  entering  joyfully  upon  the  forbidden 
territory ;  the  old  sow  follows  leisurely  at  the 
back.  Another  fertile  text  for  disquisition  would 
be  the  incident  depicted  at  page  173  of  the  same 

1  The  references,  here  and  hereafter,  are  to  the  first  editions. 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


117 


volume.  A  man  is  trying  to  ford  a  river  with 
his  cow,  to  save  the  toll.  In  mid-stream  he  has 
repented  of  his  temerity,  but  the  cow  insists  upon 
proceeding,  while  her  alarmed  master  pulls  help- 
lessly at  her  tail.1  The  landscape  background  in 
this  case,  with  its  bridge  and  wintry  hills,  is 
excellent  for  truth  and  suggestiveness. 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "jAY."     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  1797.) 

Bewick  is  particularly  fond  of  the  especial 
kind  of  dilemma  which  is  illustrated  by  the  last- 
named  sketch.     He  delights  in  portraying  an 

1  This  tailpiece  recalls  a  passage  in  one  of  Beauclerk's 
letters  :  "  Johnson  has  been  confined  for  some  weeks  in  the  Isle 
of  Sky ;  we  hear  that  he  was  obliged  to  swim  over  to  the  main- 
land, taking  hold  of  a  cow's  tail.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Lady  Di 
(i.e.  Lady  Di  Beauclerk)  has  promised  to  make  a  drawing  of  it." 
— Hardy's  "Life  of  Charlemont,"  1812,  i.  p.  345. 


1 1 8  THOMAS  BE  WICK.  [chap. 

incident  at  that  supreme  moment  when,  in  classic 
poetry,  it  would  be  considered  needful  to  call  in 
the  assistance  of  some  convenient  and  compliant 
deity.  This  is  the  case  of  the  embarrassed 
horseman  who  figures  as  a  headpiece  to  the 
"  Contents  "  in  vol.  ii.  of  the  "  Birds."  His 


KITE-FLYIXG.     (FROM  THE  "  WATER  BIRDS,"  1804.) 


horse,  aged  like  his  master,  has  been  seized  with 
an  ungovernable  fit  of  passive  obstinacy.  The 
day  is  rainy,  and  there  is  a  high  wind.  The  rider 
has  broken  his  stick  and  lost  his  hat ;  but  he  is 
too  much  encumbered  with  his  cackling  and  ex- 
cited stock  to  dare  to  dismount.  Nothing  can 
help  him  but  a  deus  ex  machind,  of  whom  there  is 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


119 


no  sign.  Another  specimen  of  this  sort  is  the 
admirable  vignette  at  page  9  of  the  same  volume. 
The  string  of  a  kite  has  caught  in  the  hat  of  a 
man  who  is  crossing  a  stream  on  a  pony.  The 
boys  are  unwilling  to  lose  their  kite,  the  man 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "  CURLEW."     (FROM  THE  "  WATER  BIRDS,"  1804.) 


clings  to  his  headgear,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
divine  how  the  matter  will  end.  Sometimes  the 
humour  of  these  little  pictures  reaches  a  point 
which  can  only  be  designated  sardonic.  In  its 
minor  form  this  is  exemplified  by  the  hulking 
blacksmith  looking  on  unmoved  at  the  miserable 
dog  with  the  pot  tied  to  its  tail.    This,  however, 


1 20 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


may  be  simply  intended  as  a  satire  upon  brutality. 
But  there  are  other  examples  which  are  not  so 
easy  to  explain,  and  less  easy  to  excuse,  since 
they  have  a  kind  of  heartlessness  about  them 
which  almost  entirely  deprives  them  of  their 
laughable  elements.     In  this  category  come  the 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "  BABOON."     (FROM  THE  "  QUADRUPEDS,"  I7CI.) 


blind  man,  whom  the  heedless  or  wanton  boy  is 
leading  into  the  deep  water,  and  his  fellow,  whose 
hat  has  blown  off  as  his  dog  conducts  him  across 
a  narrow  and  broken -railed  bridge.  Now  and 
then,  again,  this  kind  of  incident  rises  to  tragedy, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  men  who  are  chasing  a  mad 
dog  almost  into  the  arms  of  a  feeble  old  woman 
round  the  corner,  or  the  tottering  child  in  the 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


12  1 


meadow  who  is  about  to  pluck  at  the  tail  of  the 
vicious  colt.  We  know  of  no  picture  of  its  size  which 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "  WATERCRAKE."     (FROM  THE  "  WATER  BIRDS,"  1804.) 


communicates  to  the  spectator  such  a  degree  of 
compressed  suspense  as  this  little  masterpiece. 

But  we  must  abridge  what  would  otherwise 
prove  too  long  a  catalogue.  No  list  of  ours,  in- 
deed, could  hope  to  exhaust  the  "  infinite  variety" 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "  MISSEL  THRUSH."     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  I797.) 

of  these  designs ;  and  to  turn  over  the  leaves 
again  is  only  to  discover  how  many  have  been 
missed    or   omitted.     The   exquisite   series  of 


122 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


feathers,  and  the  quaint  coast-scenes,  with  their 
queer  pudding-stone  rocks,  deserve  more  than  a 
passing  mention.  So  does  the  little  group  of 
tailpieces  which  deal  with  the  picturesque  "old 
soldiers  "  of  Bewick's  youth,  two  of  whom  head 
the  "  Introduction  "  to  vol.  ii.  of  the  "  Birds."  A 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "SHETLAND  SHEEP."     (FROM  THE  "  QUADRUPEDS, "  1791.) 


chapter,  again,  might  be  devoted  to  those  alone 
which  deal  with  the  pathos  of  animal  life,  from 
the  patient  outlines  of  the  two  horses  seen  dimly 
in  the  open  field  through  the  mist  and  driving 
rain,  to  that  wonderful  vignette  in  the  "  Quadru- 
peds "  where  the  cruel,  cowardly  dog  is  tearing  at 
the  worried  ewe,  whose  poor  little  knock-kneed 
lamb  looks  on  with  mute  and  helpless  bewilder- 


viii.]  THE  TAILPIECES.  123 

ment — a  composition  which  for  sheer  pitifulness 
is  not  surpassed  by  Landseer's  "  Random  Shot." 
Then  there  is  the  section  which  may  be  said  to 
deal  with  the  lachrimm  rerum — the  sad  contrasts 
and  mutabilities  of  things — minute  pictorial  homi- 
lies which  must  have  delighted  Thackeray  :  the 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "ARCTIC  GULL.       (FROM  THE  "  WATER  BIRDS,"  1804.) 


ass  rubbing  itself  against  the  pillar  which  cele- 
brates the  famous  victory  ;  the  old  man  reading 
"Vanitas  Vanitatum "  on  the  crumbling  tomb- 
stone ;  the  beggar  taking  refuge  from  the  rain  by 
the  grass-grown  hearth  of  the  ruined  cottage  ;  the 
church  on  the  shore,  where  the  waves  are  rapidly 
effacing  the  records  of  the  dead.  All  these,  and 
many  others,  are  works  of  art  in  the  truest  sense, 


124 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


and  worthy  of  a  far  more  extensive  study  than  we 
can  give  them  here. 

So  unmistakable,  too,  is  the  note  of  reality  in 
the  majority  of  these  tailpieces,  that  it  is  impos- 
sible not  to  believe  that  many  of  them  are  records 
of  actual  occurrences  within  the  recollection  of  the 
artist.  It  is,  therefore,  much  to  be  regretted  that 
the  late  Miss  Jane  Bewick  never  carried  out  her 
expressed  intention  of  writing  a  complete  and 
authoritative  commentary  upon  this  text.  From 
some  of  her  letters  to  Mr.  Edward  Ford  we  have, 
by  the  courtesy  of  that  gentleman,  been  able  to 
glean  a  few  particulars  upon  this  subject,  some 
of  which  are  new.  The  child  catching  at  the 
horse's  tail  in  the  "  Quadrupeds "  is  Bewick's 
younger  brother ;  the  woman  rushing  over  the 
stile  is  his  grandmother.  The  tiny  vignette  at 
page  122  of  vol.  i.  of  the  "  Birds "  represents 
Bewick's  own  hat  and  stick,  —  the  latter,  his 
constant  companion,  having  belonged  to  John 
Bewick.1    In  another  vignette  (that  of  the  sports- 

1  This  must  be  the  "  blackthorn,  full  of  knobs,  with  a  silver 
hoop,"  which  Miss  Bewick  afterwards  gave  to  William  Bewick, 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


125 


man  who  has  missed  the  snipe  and  hit  the  magpie) 
is  a  portrait  of  "  Witch,"  a  favourite  dog  of  the 
family  ;  and  Miss  Bewick  confirms  Chatto's  state- 
ment that  the  traveller  drinking  out  of  the  flipe  of 
his  hat  ("  Birds,"  i.  xxx.)  is  a  portrait  of  Bewick 
himself.    There  is  another  in  the  sketch  of  the 


BEWICK  DRINKING  OUT  OF  HIS  HAT.     (FROM  THE  "  LAND  BIRDS,"  1797.) 


snow  man  ("  Birds,"  vol.  i.  p.  78),  where  he  is 
standing  on  the  stool,  and  his  brother  is  among 
the  assistants.     Miss  Bewick  further  identifies 

the  Darlington  portrait-painter,  saying,  her  father  "  never  had 
any  other  stick."  In  William  Bewick's  "  Life,"  by  Thomas 
Landseer,  1871,  ii.,  there  are  some  interesting  references  to  his 
greater  namesake.  He  had  a  portrait  of  him  by  William  Bell, 
in  the  Rembrandt  style,  with  a  hat  on,  which  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  known  to  Hugo. 


1 26 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


the  strong  man  wading  the  water  with  "  Long 
Longkin,"  the  hero  of  an  ancient  Tyneside 
ballad  of  her  youth  ;  and  says  that  the  monument 
("  Birds,"  ii.  220)  is  on  one  of  the  Northumbrian 
plains, — Millfield.  She  also  confirms  the  account 
given  by  Atkinson  of  the  two  Ovingham  dyers, 


TAILPIECE  TO  THE  "  RED-LEGGED  CROW."     (FROM  THE  "LAND  BIRDS,"  1797.) 


carrying  a  tub  between  them,  in  the  later  editions 
of  the  "  Birds"  (1816,  et  seq.),  although  the  name 
of  one  is  wrongly  reported.  It  was  not  Matthew, 
but  Robert  Carr.  The  pair  were  an  extraordinary 
contrast ;  the  master  being  a  most  dissolute  and 
objectionable  character  ;  the  man  remarkable  for 
his  simplicity,  integrity,  and  industry.    The  family 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


?7 


of  the  former,  who  was  fairly  well-to-do,  have 
long  disappeared  ;  the  latter  will  go  down  to  pos- 
terity as  the  grandfather  of  the  famous  engineer, 
George  Stephenson,  whose  modest  birthplace  is 
still  passed  by  all  who  take  the  rail  for  Prudhoe. 
Another  of  Carr's  grandsons,  Edward  Willis,  was 
afterwards  apprenticed  to  Bewick.  These  are 
minor  details  ;  but  they  increase  our  regret  that 
the  hand  which  penned  them  did  not  complete  a 
task  which  no  one  at  this  distance  of  time  is  likely 
to  undertake  with  any  prospect  of  success. 

Several  of  the  original  pencil  and  water-colour 
sketches  for  the  tailpieces  (we  may  here  take  the 
opportunity  of  stating)  are  now  in  possession  of 
Mr.  Edward  Ford  and  Mr.  J.  W.  Ford  of  Enfield. 
Some  of  these  are  of  great  beauty.  Another 
member  of  the  family,  Mrs.  Ford,  of  Adel  Grange, 
Yorkshire,  has  the  water-colour  for  the  vignette 
(already  referred  to)  of  Gunnerton  Tower,  which 
is  to  be  found  at  p.  109  of  the  "  Birds,"  vol.  ii. 

In  the  preceding  notes  we  have  made  no 
reference  to  a  few  tailpieces  in  which  the  humour, 
coarse  but  not  vicious,  is  more  nearly  in  accord- 


128 


THOMAS  BEWICK, 


[chap. 


ance  with  that  of  certain  Dutch  painters  than  the 
modern  taste  would  approve.  But,  to  the  student  of 
Bewick  who  calls  to  mind  the  manners  of  eighty 
years  ago,  these  will  present  no  serious  difficulty. 
Another  question  less  easy  to  dispose  of  is,  What 
was  the  amount  of  the  assistance  rendered  to 
Bewick  by  his  pupils  in  the  "Land"  and  u Water 
Birds "  ?  With  trivial  exceptions  the  figures  of 
the  birds  in  the  first  editions  appear  to  have  been 
entirely  done  by  himself ;  but,  as  regards  the 
tailpieces,  the  author  of  the  "  Treatise  on  Wood- 
Engraving  "  goes  so  far  as  to  give  a  specific  list 
(pp.  497-8,  ed.  1 861)  of  those  which,  he  alleges, 
were  "  either  not  drawn  or  not  engraved  by 
Bewick  " — his  information  being  derived  from  an 
unnamed  pupil.1  That  more  than  one  hand  was 
employed  upon  the  engraving  of  the  tailpieces  is 
manifest  from  the  differences  in  the  style  of  the 
cuts  themselves  ;  but,  as  may  be  imagined,  these 
tardy  claims  on  behalf  of  the  pupils  were  not  very 

1  E.  Landells,  Nesbit,  Edward  Willis,  and  William  Harvey- 
were  all  in  London  about  1835-40  ;  and  with  each  of  these  (from 
information  now  before  the  wrriter),  in  addition  to  Jackson,  Mr. 
Chatto  seems  to  have  been  in  direct  communication. 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


129 


favourably  received  by  Bewick's  representatives 
when  the  "  Treatise  on  Wood-Engraving"  was 
first  published  in  1839.  No  reference,  however, 
was  made  to  them  in  any  way  when  the  "  Memoir" 
was  issued  in  1862,  although,  in  the  previous  year, 
Mr.  H.  G.  Bohn  had  put  forth  a  second  edition 
of  the  "  Treatise,"  in  which  they  were  repeated. 
This  is  clearly  to  be  regretted,  as  the  day  has  now 
passed  for  deciding  upon  the  truth  or  falsity  of 
this  equivocal  list;  and  it  may  well  be  that  the 
assistance  afforded  was  unduly  exaggerated.  At 
the  same  time  Bewick  had  some  exceedingly 
clever  pupils,  and  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  two 
of  them,  Robert  Johnson  and  Luke  Clennell,  did 
really  render  effective  service  in  the  tailpieces  of 
the  "  Birds,"  and  especially  in  the  second  volume. 
That  this  was  so,  detracts  little  or  nothing,  as  it 
seems  to  us,  from  Bewick's  reputation.  To  what- 
ever extent  he  availed  himself  of  the  aid  in  ques- 
tion, it  would  be  absurd  to  overlook  the  fact  that  he 
was  the  presiding  spirit  of  the  enterprise,  that  his 
pupils  worked  under  his  direction  and  influence, 
and  that,  although  a  few  of  them  attained  to  re- 

K 


130 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


markable  technical  skill  as  engravers,  there  is 
absolutely  no  evidence  that  any  of  them  ever 
excelled  him  in  his  own  particular  line  when  work- 
ing by  themselves.  It  is,  however,  only  just  to  add 
that  Johnson,  some  of  whose  delicate  water-colour 
drawings  are  still  to  be  seen  in  Newcastle,  must 
have  possessed  talents  both  as  a  designer  and 
humourist  of  a  really  remarkable  order.  His 
story,  as  told  by  Mackenzie,  is  a  sad  one.  He 
was  born  at  Shotley  in  Northumberland,  in  1770, 
being  the  son  of  a  joiner  and  cabinet-maker,  who 
placed  him  in  1788  with  Bewick,  under  whom  he 
rapidly  became  proficient  in  drawing.  His 
sketches  found  ready  purchasers  ;  and  his  carica- 
tures, in  the  Cruikshankian  vein,  considerable 
popularity.  Hugo  gives  the  names  of  two  or  three 
of  these  pictorial  pasquinades,  which  were  directed 
against  a  Newcastle  Tory  bookseller,  Joseph  Whit- 
field. Johnson  does  not  appear  to  have  engraved 
much  on  wood,  although  he  executed  at  least  one 
copperplate.  The  rest  may  be  told  in  Mackenzie's 
words:  ' '  About  six  months  after  the  expiration 
of  his  apprenticeship,  he  was  engaged  by  Messrs. 


VIII.] 


THE  TAILPIECES. 


131 


Morrison,  of  Perth,  to  reduce  the  set  of  portraits 
by  Jamieson,  and  was  sent  to  Kenmore,  the  seat 
of  the  Earl  of  Breadalbane,  to  copy  them  for  the 


MEMORIAL  CUT  TO  ROBERT  JOHNSON.     (AFTER  CHARLTON  NESBIT.) 


Gallery  of  Scottish  Portraits.  He  had  finished 
fifteen,  and  there  remained  four  to  copy,  when,  in 
his  anxiety  to  complete  his  task,  he  would  sit, 
though  of  a  delicate  constitution,  all  day  in  a 


132 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap.  VIII. 


room  without  fire.  A  violent  cold  was  the  con- 
sequence, which,  neglected,  increased  to  a  fever. 
'  It  flew  to  his  brain;  and,  terrible  to  relate!  he 
was  bound  with  ropes,  beaten,  and  treated  like  a 
madman.'  This  improper  treatment  was  discon- 
tinued by  the  orders  of  a  physician  who  accidentally 
arrived.  By  the  application  of  blisters,  reason 
returned  ;  and  poor  Johnson  died  in  peace  on 
October  29,  1796,  in  the  twenty-sixth  year  of  his 
age.  His  friend  and  fellow-prentice,  Nesbit, 
engraved  a  memorial  to  his  memory ;  and  a  stone 
was  erected  in  Ovingham  Churchyard  to  record 
the  early  fate  of  this  ingenious  and  promising 
artist." 

It  is  worth  noticing  that,  from  the  above 
account,  Johnson's  connection  with  Bewick  was 
clearly  long  subsequent  to  the  "  Select  Fables " 
of  1784;  and  that  it  had  ceased  some  months 
before  the  publication  of  the  first  volume  of  the 
"  Birds  "  in  1797. 


BUST  OF  BEWICK. 
By  E.  H.  Baily,  R.A.,  in  the  Newcastle  Literary  and 

Philosophical  Society's  Library.       To  face  page  i 


CHAPTER  IX. 


"yESOP's  FABLES,"  BEWICKS  DEATH. 

In  1804,  when  the  second  volume  of  the  "  Birds" 
was  issued,  Bewick  was  a  man  of  fifty.  He  had 
still  four-and-twenty  years  to  live.  But  although 
he  continued  to  occupy  himself  actively  for  the 
remainder  of  his  life,  he  never  again  produced 
anything  to  equal  the  "  Select  Fables "  and  the 
three  volumes  on  Natural  History.  A  large 
number  of  books,  illustrated  or  said  to  be  illus- 
trated by  him,  have  been  traced  out  by  the  indis- 
criminate enthusiasm  of  the  late  Mr.  Hugo,  whose 
unwieldy  collection  was  dispersed  at  Sotheby's  in 
1877.  For  the  revival  of  many  of  these — "honest 
journeywork  in  defect  of  better,"  as  Carlyle  would 
have  styled  them — we  suspect  that  straight- 
forward  Thomas  Bewick  would  scarcely  have 


134 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


thanked  him.  The  only  volume  of  any  real  import- 
ance subsequent  to  1804  is  the  "  Fables  of  ^sop," 
published  in  18 18.  If  any  books  issued  in  the 
interval  deserve  a  passing  mention  they  are 
Thomson's  "  Seasons,"  1805,  the  "  Hive,"  1806, 
Burns's  "Poems,"  1808,  and  Ferguson's  "  Poems," 
1 8 14.  But  the  designs  for  the  Thomson  and 
Burns  were  prepared  by  John  Thurston,  and  in 
the  case  of  the  latter  it  is  stated  by  William 
Harvey  that  they  were  engraved  by  Bewick's 
pupil,  Henry  White.  In  the  "  Hive,"  again,  the 
majority  of  the  cuts  are  by  Luke  Clennell. 

The  "Fables  of  ALsop  and  Others"1  seems 

1  This  must  not  be  confused  with  the  vamped -up  volume 
issued  in  1820  by  Emerson  Charnley  under  the  title  of  "  Select 
Fables ;  with  Cuts,  Designed  and  Engraved  by  Thomas  and 
John  Bewick  and  Others  [!],  previous  to  the  year  1784:  To- 
gether with  a  Memoir;  and  a  descriptive  Catalogue  of  the  Works 
of  Messrs.  Bewick."  Charnley,  an  enterprising  Newcastle  pub- 
lisher, had  become  possessed  of  the  majority  of  the  blocks  to  the 
"Select  Fables"  (1784)  and  "Gay"  (1779).  To  these  he  added 
a  number  of  inferior  cuts  of  early  date,  done  chiefly  for  Saint,  in- 
cluding some  by  Isaac  Nicholson  and  "  others,"  and  he  put  forth 
the  whole  with  the  above  title  as  "  Vol.  i.  of  Bewick's  Works." 
The  "Memoir"  and  "Descriptive  Catalogue"  were  prepared  by 
John  Trotter  Brockett,  author  of  the  "Glossary  of  North  Country 
Words,  in  Use,"  1825;  and  Charlton  Nesbit,  who  engraved  an 


ix.]     '^ESOP 'S  FABLES,'  BE  WICK'S  DEA  TH.  135 


to  have  been  begun  in  181 2,  after  a  severe  illness, 
to  which  reference  is  made  in  the  "  Memoir." 
Bewick  speaks  of  this  book  as  if  it  had  been  a 
long-contemplated  idea.  "  I  could  not  (he  says) 
.  .  .  help  regretting  that  I  had  not  published  a 
book  similar  to  '  Croxall's  ^Esop's  Fables/  as  I  had 
always  intended  to  do "  [he  seems  to  forget  or 
ignore  the  "  Select  Fables  "]  ;  and  he  goes  on  to 
say  that,  as  soon  as  he  was  so  far  recovered  as  to 
be  able  to  sit  at  the  window,  he  began  to  "  draw 
designs  upon  the  wood"  for  the  illustrations.  In 
this  work  he  expressly  states  that  he  was  assisted 
by  his  son  (R.  E.  Bewick),  and  two  of  his  pupils, 
William  Temple  and  William  Harvey.  It  is 
probable  that  the  bulk  of  the  engraving  fell  to  the 
share  of  these  latter.  But  here,  again,  we  come 
face  to  face  with  another  of  the  unsolved,  and 
to-day  insoluble,  questions  of  Bewick  biography. 

excellent  frontispiece-portrait  of  Bewick,  after  William  Nicholson, 
repaired  and  retouched  the  blocks, — not  to  their  advantage.  This 
volume  was  produced  with  little  consideration  for  Bewick's  feelings 
and  reputation.  Its  pretensions  are  well  known  to  collectors  ; 
but  Mr.  W.  J.  Linton  has  recently  exposed  them  at  large  in  the 
"Academy"  for  2 2d  March  1884. 


136 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


In  the  "Treatise  on  Wood-Engraving"  it  is  alleged 
that  the  majority  of  the  water-colour  drawings  for 
"Bewick's  Fables"  were  made  by  Robert  Johnson 
"during  his  apprenticeship,"  and  they  are  referred 
to  in  a  note  as  if  the  writer  were  speaking  de  visit, 


THE  FOX  AND  THE  GOAT.     (FROM  CROXALL's  {C  FABLES,"  1722.) 


since  their  "finish  and  accuracy"  is  dilated  upon, 
and  they  are  compared  to  "  miniature  Paul 
P otters  "x  It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  this 
should  be  the  case,  but  it  seems  at  the  same  time 
exceedingly  improbable  that  in  preparing  a  book 

1  This  note,  we  have  reason  to  believe,  was  written  by  or  for 
Mr.  Jackson. 


ix.]    'jESOP'S  FABLES;  BE  WICK'S  be  a  th.     i  37 


in  18 1 2,  Bewick  should  have  fallen  back  for  his 
designs  upon  a  set  of  illustrations  made  some 
twenty  years  before  by  a  young  man,  who,  more- 
over, had  been  in  his  grave  since  1796.  Unfortu- 
nately there  is  not,  to  the  best  of  our  recollection, 


THE  FOX  AND  THE  GOAT.     (FROM  "  FABLES  OF  ^ESOP,"  l8l8.) 


a  single  allusion  to  Johnson  in  the  whole  of  the 
"  Memoir,"  unless,  indeed,  it  is  covered  by  a 
passage  in  which  "the  envy  and  ingratitude  of 
some  of  my  pupils"  are  obscurely  hinted  at.  It 
is  therefore  hopeless  now  to  speak  with  any  cer- 
tainty upon  the  matter. 


138 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


As  to  the  book  itself,  it  bears  much  the  same 
relation  to  Bewick's  earlier  work  that  the  per- 
formances of  a  man's  decline  generally  do  to  the 
first  "  sprightly  runnings"  of  his  genius.  The 
impulse  flags,  but  the  effort  is  painfully  increased. 
The  cuts  in  "  ^Esop  "  are  more  minute  and  more 
studied,  less  certain  of  stroke,  less  sparing  of  line. 
The  basis  of  the  designs,  by  whomsoever  the 
majority  may  be,  is  avowedly  Croxall.  In  the 
"  Viper  and  the  File,"  for  instance,  the  composi- 
tion is  larger  and  more  minutely  finished  ;  but  the 
viper  (and  this  is  an  improvement)  is  on  the 
ground  instead  of  on  the  bench.  In  the  "  Young 
Man  and  the  Swallow"  the  artist  has  reverted, 
not  we  think  wisely,  to  the  classical  prodigal  of 
the  earlier  book.  Some  of  the  tailpieces  are  good 
and  humorous  ;  but  they  are  not  equal  to  those 
of  the  "  Quadrupeds  "  and  "  Birds."  A  man  with  a 
bundle  at  his  back,  whose  shadow  resembles  the 
devil,  appears  to  give  the  first  hint  of  the  ingen- 
ious shadow-pictures  of  the  late  C.  H.  Bennett. 
"  Waiting  for  Death,"  at  page  338,  is  one  of  the 
many  variations  of  the  large  block  upon  which 


ix.]     '^ESOP'S  FABLES;  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  139 


Bewick  was  occupied  in  his  last  days  ;  and  accord- 
ing to  Howitt,  the  inscription  at  page  152 — "O 
God  of  infinite  Wisdom,  Truth,  Justice,  and  Mercy, 
I  thank  Thee,"  was  Bewick's  favourite  form  of 
prayer.  The  headstones  at  pages  162  and  176 
record  the  dates  of  the  deaths  of  his  father  and 
mother ;  and  the  final  tailpiece  is  said  by  Mr. 


HEADSTONE  TAILPIECES.     (FROM  "  FABLES  OF  ^ESOP,"  l8l8.) 


Hugo  to  represent  John  Bewick's  funeral.  In 
this  case  the  church  represented  must  be  intended 
for  a  reversed  copy  of  the  one  at  Ovingham.  The 
little  tailpiece  to  the  "  Frogs  and  their  King,"  apart 
from  its  special  merit,  affords  us  an  opportunity  of 
citing  a  thoroughly  Ruskinesque  passage  which  is 
devoted  to  it  in  "Ariadne  Florentina,"  pp.  89,  90. 
"In  this  vignette  he  [Bewick]  strikes  definitely  at 
the  degradation  of  the  viler  popular  mind  which 


140 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


is  incapable  of  being  governed,  because  it  cannot 
understand  the  nobleness  of  kingship  .  .  .  There 
is  an  audience  of  seven  frogs,  listening  to  a  speaker, 
or  croaker,  in  the  middle;  and  Bewick  has  set  him- 
self to  show  in  all,  but  especially  in  the  speaker, 
essential  frogginess  of  mind — the  marsh  temper. 
He  could  not  have  done  it  half  so  well  in  painting 
as  he  has  done  by  the  abstraction  of  wood-out- 
line. The  characteristic  of  a  manly  mind,  or  body, 
is  to  be  gentle  in  temper,  and  firm  in  constitution  ; 
the  contrary  essence  of  a  froggy  mind  and  body 
is  to  be  angular  in  temper,  and  flabby  in  constitu- 
tion. I  have  enlarged  Bewick's  orator-frog  for 
you  [this  refers  to  the  plate  in  'Ariadne'],  .  .  . 
and  I  think  you  will  see  he  is  entirely  expressed  in 
those  essential  particulars." 

Although  the  legend  at  the  bottom  of  this  cut 
is  undoubtedly  a  facsimile  of  Bewick's  hand- 
writing, it  is,  however,  most  likely  that  it  was 
engraved  by  William  Harvey,  as  it  is  wanting  in 
some  of  the  characteristics  of  Bewick's  manner. 
A  curious  receipt  is  generally  to  be  found  bound 
up  with  copies  of  "yEsop's  Fables."    It  is  inter- 


ix.]     AESOP'S  FABLES,'  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  141 


esting  to  collectors  from  the  example  which  it 
gives  of  the  signatures  of  the  Bewicks,  father  and 
son,  and  for  the  famous  thumb-mark,  which  also 
appears  at  page  175  of  vol.  i.  of  the  "  Birds." 
Another  noticeable  feature  of  this  receipt  is  a 
piece  of  seaweed,  which  seems  to  lie  over  the 
central  landscape,  and  was  impressed  upon  it  in 
red  ink  from  a  copperplate.  Finally,  it  should 
be  added  that  the  "  Preface  "  to  the  book,  which 
deserves  some  of  the  praise  lavished  upon  it  by 
the  artist's  admirers,  was  written  by  Bewick  him- 
self, who  is  also  responsible  for  a  few  of  the 
fables,  that  of  the  "  Ship  Dog"  being  from  his 
hand.  Another,  composed  for  the  same  purpose, 
and  entitled  "The  Alarm,"  was  first  published  in 
the  "  Memoir"  of  1862, — Bewick's  printer,  Mr. 
Walker,  having  made  some  objection  to  it,  which 
led  to  its  suppression  in  181 8.  There  are  better 
examples  of  the  author's  prose,  and  its  chief  char- 
acteristic is  the  inordinate  length  of  the  "  applica- 
tion," which  is  quite  in  Croxall's  vein.  The 
illustration,  also  by  Bewick,  which  represents  the 
imps  of  hell  setting  off  "  like  a  whirlwind,  amidst 


142 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


the  glare  of  lightning  and  the  roar  of  thunder,  to 
take  up  their  abode  in  the  minds  of  men,"  is  here 
reproduced  from  the  copy  given  in  the  "  Treatise 
on  Wood- Engraving." 


THE  ALARM.     (INTENDED  FOR  "  FABLES  OF  ^SOP,"  1818.) 


If  we  except  the  account  of  a  brief  visit  paid 
to  Edinburgh  in  1823,  when  he  made  for  Messrs. 
Ballantyne  and  Robertson  the  only  sketch  upon 
the  stone  (the  "  Cadger's  Trot")  which  is  known 
to  have  come  from  his  hand,  there  is  little  of 


ix.]     '^ESOP'S  FABLES:  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  143 


further  biographical  interest  in  Bewick's  "  Memoir." 
In  the  last  year  of  his  life  he  visited  London  ;  but 
although  the  concluding  date  of  the  "  Memoir"  is 
1st  November  1828,  or  only  a  few  days  before  he 
died,  it  contains  no  reference  to  that  occurrence. 
At  this  time,  he  was  evidently  in  failing  health  ; 
and  it  is  related  that  although  his  friend  Mr. 
William  Bulmer  drove  him  to  the  Regent's  Park, 
he  declined  to  alight  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the 
animals.  But  if  the  "  Memoir"  is  deficient  in 
merely  personal  particulars,  it  is  by  no  means 
deficient  in  personality,  as  some  dozen  further 
chapters  are  exclusively  occupied  by  those  reflec- 
tions with  which  (as  Dovaston  informs  us  with 
complacent  but  comical  gravity)  "  he  generally 
relieved  his  powerful  mind  in  the  bosom  of  his 
very  amiable  family."  To  the  ordinary  reader 
these  deliverances  would  be  perhaps  a  little  tedi- 
ous ;  but,  to  the  lover  of  Bewick  who  cares  to 
know  all  about  him,  they  will  command  the  re- 
spect with  which  they  are  spoken  of  by  Mr. 
Ruskin.  Most  of  them  are  characterised  by 
strong  good  sense  and  natural  piety ;  and  in  one 


144 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


or  two  passages,  as,  for  instance,  when  he  writes 
on  the  topics  of  selection  in  marriage  and  the 
education  of  children,  considerably  in  advance  of 
his  time. 

Of  what,  however,  would  have  interested  us 
most,  his  method  and  procedure  in  his  art,  he  has 
little  definite  to  tell  us.  It  is  possible — as  he  hints 
— that,  in  mistaken  modesty,  he  shrunk  from  ob- 
truding his  opinions.  But  the  two  chapters  which 
contain  references  to  this  subject  must  serve  as 
our  pretext  for  recalling  briefly  the  most  obvious 
characteristics  of  his  technique. 

In  comparing  Bewick's  method  as  an  engraver 
with  that  of  the  old  woodcutters  who  reproduced 
the  drawings  of  Durer  and  Holbein,  two  marked 
and  well  -  defined  differences  become  apparent. 
One  of  these  is  a  difference  in  the  preparation 
of  the  wood  and  the  tool  employed.  The  old 
woodcutter  cut  his  design  with  a  knife  on  strips  of 
pear  or  other  wood  sawn  lengthwise — that  is  to 
say,  upon  the  plank;  Bewick  used  a  graver  and 
worked  upon  slices  of  box  cut  across  the  grain — 
that  is  to  say,  upon  the  end  of  the  wood.    The  other 


ix.]    'sE  SOP'S  FABLES;  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  145 


difference,  of  which  Bewick  is  said  to  be  the 
inventor,  consisted  in  the  employment  of  what  is 
known  technically  as  "  white  line."  In  all  ante- 
cedent woodcutting,  the  workman  had  simply 
cleared  away  those  portions  of  the  block  left  bare 
by  the  design,  so  that  the  design  remained  in 
relief  to  be  printed  from  like  type.  When  done 
skilfully,  and  with  enlightened  appreciation  of 
the  essential  quality  —  the  vigour  or  delicacy — 
of  the  original  design,  the  result  obtained  in  this 
way  is  a  practical  facsimile.  Clennell's  copies  of 
Stothard's  pen-and-ink  sketches  for  the  Rogers 
of  1 8 10  are  good  examples  in  point.  Bewick, 
however,  though  of  course  working  sometimes 
in  facsimile,  generally  proceeded  in  a  different 
fashion.  He  directed  his  attention  less  to  the 
portions  of  the  block  which  he  was  to  leave  than 
to  those  he  was  to  remove.  Those  spaces  or 
lines  which  in  the  impression  would  print  black, 
he  left  to  take  care  of  themselves  ;  those  he  chiefly 
regarded  were  the  spaces  and  lines  which  would 
print  white.  In  other  words,  whether  the  design 
to  be  copied  was  brush  or  pencil — in  tint  or  stroke 

L 


146 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


— he  drew  it  upon  the  block  with  his  graver  in 
white  line.  This  is  a  bare  way  of  explaining  his 
modus  operandi;  but  a  glance  at  the  background 
of  some  of  his  cuts,  say  the  "  Yellow  Hammer"  at 
p.  100,  will  make  it  plainer  than  any  written  de- 
scription. Again,  his  gradations  of  colour  were 
obtained  almost  exclusively  by  the  use  of  single 
lines  as  opposed  to  cross-hatching ;  and  here 
also  his  mode  of  approaching  his  work  from 
the  white  rather  than  the  black  side  was  an 
advantage. 

"  I  never/'  he  says,  speaking  of  cross-hatching, 
"  could  discover  any  additional  beauty  or  colour 
that  the  crossed  strokes  gave  to  the  impression, 
beyond  the  effect  produced  by  plain  parallel  lines. 
This  is  very  apparent  when  to  a  certainty  the 
plain  surface  of  the  wood  will  print  as  black  as 
ink  and  balls  can  make  it,  without  any  further 
labour  at  all ;  and  it  may  easily  be  seen  that  the 
thinnest  strokes  cut  upon  the  plain  surface  will 
throw  some  light  on  the  subject  or  design  :  and,  if 
these  strokes  are  made  wider  and  deeper,  it  will 
receive  more  light ;  and  if  these  strokes,  again, 


ix.]    'sESOP'S  FABLES^  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  147 


are  made  still  wider,  or  of  equal  thickness  to  the 
black  lines,  the  colour  these  produce  will  be  a 
grey  ;  and  the  more  the  white  strokes  are  thick- 
ened, the  nearer  will  they,  in  their  varied  shad- 
ings, approach  to  white,  and,  if  quite  taken  away, 
then  a  perfect  white  is  obtained." 

Another  feature  of  Bewick's  method,  which 
his  daughter  and  editor  regarded  as  "  peculiar  to 
himself,"  was  his  habit  of  " lowering"  his  blocks 
to  lighten  the  impression  where  necessary.  No 
doubt  he  himself  hit  upon  this  expedient  inde- 
pendently, but  it  seems  to  have  been  well  known 
to  some  of  the  earlier  engravers,  including  Crox- 
all's  artist.  The  following  passage,  from  Chapter 
xxii.  of  the  "  Memoir,"  refers,  inter  alia,  to  this 
process  : — 

"  The  first  difficulty  I  felt,  as  I  proceeded, 
was  in  getting  the  cuts  I  had  executed  printed  so 
as  to  look  anything  like  my  drawings  on  the  blocks 
of  wood,  nor  (sic)  corresponding  to  the  labour  I 
had  bestowed  upon  the  cutting  of  the  designs. 
At  that  time  pressmen  were  utterly  ignorant  as  to 
any  proper  effect  that  was  to  be  produced  ;  or 


148 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


even,  if  one  of  them  possessed  any  notions  of 
excellence  beyond  the  common  run  of  workmen, 
his  materials  for  working  were  so  defective  that 
he  could  not  execute  even  what  he  himself  wished 
to  accomplish.  The  common  pelt-balls  then  in  use, 
so  daubed  the  cut,  and  blurred  and  overlapped  its 
edges,  that  the  impression  looked  disgusting.  To 
remedy  this  defect  I  was  obliged  carefully  to 
shave  down  the  edges  round  about ;  and  this 
answered  the  end  I  had  in  view.  The  next  diffi- 
culty was  worse  to  surmount,  and  required  a  long 
time  to  get  over  it  ;  and  that  was,  to  lower  down 
the  surface  on  all  the  parts  I  wished  to  appear 
pale,  so  as  to  give  the  appearance  of  the  required 
distance  ;  and  this  process  will  always  continue  to 
call  forth  and  to  exercise  the  judgment  of  every 
wood-engraver,  even  after  he  knows  what  effect 
his  careful  pressman  may  be  enabled  to  produce 
from  this  his  manner  of  cutting.  On  this  all 
artists  must  form  their  own  ideas.  I  think  no 
exact  description  can  be  laid  down  as  a  rule  for 
others  to  go  by  :  they  will  by  practice  have  to 
find  out  this  themselves.'' 


ix.]     l^SOP  'S  FABLES,'  BE  WICK'S  BE  A  TH.  149 


It  may  be  added  that  "  no  exact  description  " 
of  Bewick's  method  will  make  a  Bewick,  any  more 
than  staring  at  his  worn-out  graving  tools  and 
eye-glass,  which  were  displayed  in  the  Bond  Street 
Exhibition,  will  make  an  engraver.  In  technique, 
although  the  principle  of  "white  line"  is  still  re- 
cognised, many  improvements  have  taken  place, 
and  modern  wood-engraving  has  resources  never 
foreseen  by  its  northern  restorer  and  reviver. 
There  are,  besides,  many  designers  on  the  block 
to-day,  compared  with  whom,  by  what  Mr.  Hamer- 
ton  styles  his  "  tonic  arrangement,"  by  his  con- 
ventional rendering  of  details,  and  by  his  general 
treatment  of  his  subject,  Bewick  must  seem  an 
unlettered  amateur.  But  his  gift  as  a  naturalist 
and  humourist  still  remains  unaltered, — personal, 
unique,  incommunicable.  It  is  this  quality  which 
attracts  to  him  that  large  majority  who  are  neither 
artists  nor  engravers  ;  and  it  is  in  virtue  of  this, 
and  his  sincerity  and  honesty  as  a  man,  that  his 
work  will  continue  to  live. 

Shortly  before  his  death  Bewick  retired  from 
the  business  in  favour  of  his  son,  who  continued  to 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


bewick's  workshop  in  st.  Nicholas's  churchyard,  Newcastle, 
in  its  present  condition. 


carry  it  on  at  the  shop  in  St.  Nicholas's  Church- 
yard, where  for  nearly  fifty  years  his  father  had 
laboured.    It  was  in  the  upper  room  of  this  house, 


ix.]     'JESOP'S  FABLES^  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  151 


we  are  told — the  room  which  has  in  our  sketch 
two  windows  in  the  roof — that  Bewick  preferred 
to  work  in  his  latter  days.  The  old  shop  still 
presents  the  same  appearance  that  it  did  then, 
the  only  difference  being  that  the  signboard 
bearing  the  words  "  Bewick  and  Son,  Engravers," 
is  now  replaced  by  a  tablet  identifying  the  spot. 
On  one  of  the  windows,  his  name,  scratched  by 
a  diamond,  and  the  profile  of  a  face,  are  ex- 
hibited with  pride  by  the  present  occupants.  His 
residence,  after  he  moved  from  the  Forth,  was  a 
house  on  the  Windmill  Hills,  Gateshead,  which 
then  commanded  a  view  of  the  Tyne,  but  is  now 
simply  No.  19  West  Street.  Here,  after  his 
retirement,  Bewick  continued  to  employ  himself 
upon  the  " History  of  British  Fishes/'  some  of  the 
blocks  for  which  were  printed  at  the  end  of  the 
"  Memoir;  "  while  a  further  selection  of  the  tail- 
pieces, already  drawn  upon  for  the  "  Birds "  of 
1847,  are  dispersed  in  the  body  of  the  book. 
The  last  vignette  upon  which  Bewick  was  en- 
gaged was  that  of  the  ferry-boat  waiting  for  the 
coffin,  at  page  286  of  the  "  Memoir,"  and  before 


152 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


referred  to  in  these  pages.  But  the  chief  work  of 
his  closing  days  was  a  large  separate  woodcut, 
in  which  it  was  his  aim,  by  printing  from  two 
or  more  blocks,  to  produce  something  of  the 
variety  of  tint  and  effect  obtained  in  the  copper- 
plates of  Woollett.  The  subject  he  selected  was 
a  lean-ribbed  and  worn-out  horse,  waiting  patiently 
in  the  rain  for  death.  This  he  intended  to  serve 
as  one  of  those  cheap  prints  for  the  walls  of 
cottages  which  had  been  familiar  to  his  boyhood, 
and  he  proposed  to  dedicate  it  to  the  "  Society  for 
the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals."  With 
some  such  view  he  had  already,  as  early  as  1785, 
drawn  up  a  graphic  biography  of  his  broken-down 
model.  Besides  being  an  excellent  introduction  to 
his  design,  it  is  thoroughly  characteristic  both  of 
its  authors  literary  style  and  his  sympathies  with 
equine  misery.  We  therefore  reproduce  it  here, 
in  all  the  integrity  of  its  italics. 

"  Waiting  for  Death. 

lk  In  the  morning  of  his  days  he  was  handsome 
— sleek  as  a  raven,  sprightly  and  spirited,  and 


ix.]     'sESOP'S  FABLES;  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  153 


was  then  much  caressed  and  happy.  When  he 
grew  to  perfection  in  his  performances — even  on 
the  turf,  and  afterwards  in  the  chase  and  in  the 
field — he  was  equalled  by  few  of  his  kind.  At 
one  time  of  his  life  he  saved  that  of  his  master, 
whom  he  bore  in  safety  across  the  rapid  flood,  but 
having,  in  climbing  the  opposite  rocky  shore, 
received  a  blemish,  it  was  thought  prudent  to 
dispose  of  him,  after  which  he  fell  into  the  hands 
of  different  masters  ;  but  from  none  of  them  did 
he  ever  eat  the  bread  of  idleness,  and  as  he  grew 
in  years  his  cup  of  misery  was  still  augmented 
with  bitterness. 

"  It  was  once  his  hard  lot  to  fall  into  the  hands 
of  Skinflint,  a  horse-keeper — an  authorised  whole- 
sale and  retail  dealer  in  cruelty — who  employed 
him  alternately,  but  closely,  as  a  hack,  both  in  the 
chaise  and  for  the  saddle  ;  for  when  the  traces 
and  trappings  used  in  the  former  had  peeled  the 
skin  from  off  his  breast,  shoulders,  and  sides,  he 
was  then,  as  his  back  was  whole,  thought  fit  for 
the  latter ;  indeed,  his  exertions  in  this  service  of 
unfeeling  avarice  and  folly  were  great  beyond 


154 


THOMAS  BE  WICK, 


[chap. 


belief.  He  was  always  late  and  early  made  ready 
for  action — he  was  never  allowed  to  rest.  Even 
on  the  Sabbath  day,  because  he  could  trot  well, 
had  a  good  bottom,  and  was  the  best  hack  in 
town,  and  it  being  a  day  of  pleasure  and  pastime, 
he  was  much  sought  after  by  beings  in  appear- 
ance something  like  gentlemen,  in  whose  hands 
his  sufferings  were  greater  than  his  nature  could 
bear.  Has  not  the  compassionate  eye  beheld  him 
whipped,  spurred,  and  galloped  beyond  his  strength 
in  order  to  accomplish  double  the  length  of  the 
journey  that  he  was  engaged  to  perform,  till,  by 
the  inward  grief  expressed  in  his  countenance, 
he  seemed  to  plead  for  mercy,  one  would  have 
thought,  most  powerfully  ?  But  alas !  in  vain. 
In  the  whole  load  which  he  bore,  as  was  often 
the  case,  not  an  ounce  of  humanity  could  be 
found  ;  and,  his  rider  being  determined  to  have 
pennyworths  for  his  money,  the  ribs  of  this  silent 
slave,  where  not  a  hair  had  for  long  been  suffered 
to  grow,  were  still  ripped  up.  He  was  pushed 
forward  through  a  stony  rivulet,  then  on  hard 
road  against  the  hill,  and  having  lost  a  shoe,  split 


ix.]     '^SOP'S  FABLES;  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  155 


his  hoof,  and  being  quite  spent  with  hunger  and 
fatigue,  he  fell,  broke  his  nose  and  his  knees,  and 
was  unable  to  proceed  ;  and  becoming  greased, 
spavined,  ringboned,  blind  of  an  eye,  and  the  skin 
by  repeated  friction  being  worn  off  all  the  large 
prominences  of  his  body,  he  was  judged  to  be 
only  fit  for  the  dogs.  However,  one  shilling  and 
sixpence  beyond  the  dog-horse  price  saved  his 
life,  and  he  became  the  property  of  a  poor  dealer 
and  horse  doctor. 

"  It  is  amazing  to  think  upon  the  vicissitudes 
of  his  life.  He  had  often  been  burnished  up,  his 
teeth  defaced  by  art,  peppered  under  his  tail,  had 
been  the  property  of  a  general,  a  gentleman,  a 
farmer,  a  miller,  a  butcher,  a  higgler,  and  a  maker 
of  brooms.  A  hard  winter  coming  on,  a  want  of 
money  and  a  want  of  meat  obliged  his  poor  owner 
to  turn  him  out  to  shift  for  himself.  His  former 
fame  and  great  value  are  now  to  him  not  worth 
a  handful  of  oats.  But  his  days  and  nights  of 
misery  are  now  drawing  to  an  end ;  so  that,  after 
having  faithfully  dedicated  the  whole  of  his  powers 
and  his  time  to  the  service  of  unfeeling  man,  he  is 


i56 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


at  last  turned  out,  unsheltered  and  unprotected,  to 
starve  of  hunger  and  of  cold." 

On  the  Saturday  previous  to  Bewick's  death, 
which  took  place,  after  a  few  days'  illness,  on  the 
8th  of  November  1828,  he  had  the  first  block  of 
the  old  horse  proved.  It  was  then  unfinished,  the 
head  being  only  partly  engraved,  but  he  is  said 
to  have  observed  to  the  pressman,  upon  inspect- 
ing the  proof,  "  I  wish  I  was  but  twenty  years 
younger  ! "  Copies  of  this  were  struck  off  in  1832 
by  R.  E.  Bewick,  with  this  inscription — "  Waiting 
for  Death  :  Bewick's  Last  Work,  left  unfinished, 
and  intended  to  have  been  completed  by  a  Series 
of  Impressions  from  Separate  Blocks  printed  over 
each  other."  In  recent  years  it  has  again  been 
carefully  reprinted  on  parchment  and  paper  for 
Mr.  Robinson,  of  Pilgrim  Street. 

Bewick  is  buried  at  the  west  end  of  Oving- 
ham  Church,  lying,  as  he  hoped,  beside  his  brother 
John,  and  near  the  place  of  his  birth.  In  his  last 
illness  his  mind  wandered  repeatedly  to  the  green 
fields  and  brooks  of  Cherryburn  ;  and  once,  on 


ix.]     'AESOP'S  FABLES^  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  157 


being  asked  in  a  waking  moment  what  had  occu- 
pied his  thoughts,  he  replied,  with  a  faint  smile, 
"  that  he  had  been  devising  subjects  for  some 
new  tailpieces."  The  chief  features  of  his  personal 
character  will  already  have  been  gathered  from 
what  has  preceded.  It  is  only  necessary  to  add 
here  that  he  seems  to  have  been  a  thoroughly 
upright  and  honourable  man,  independent  but 
unassuming,  averse  to  display  of  all  kinds,  very 
methodical,  very  industrious,  devoted  to  his  fire- 
side, his  own  people,  and  that  particular  patch  of 
earth  which  constituted  his  world.  In  such  scant 
glimpses  as  we  get  of  him  in  letters  and  the 
recollections  of  friends,  it  is  chiefly  under  some 
of  these  latter  aspects.  Now  he  is  chatting  in  his 
broad  speech  1  to  the  country  folk  in  the  market- 

1  Bewick,  says  Mr.  Atkinson,  spoke  grammatically,  and  with 
well-chosen  and  forcible  words,  but  his  pronunciation  was  broad, 
and  marked  by  all  the  varied  intonation  of  Northumbrians.  He 
was  exceedingly  clever  in  imitating  the  language  of  his  country- 
men, and  sometimes  scribbled  down  his  recollections  of  scenes  in 
his  early  life  for  the  amusement  of  his  friends.  Of  one  of  these 
Mr.  Atkinson  prints  a  fragment : — 

"'Aehy — Aehy,'kih  she,  'yeh  may  say  what  yeh  leyke,  but  Ize 
suer  aws  reet,  aw  ken  well  eneugh  when  he  was  bwoarn,  fir  I  meynd 
aw  was  up  at  the  Mistrisses  suen  ee  th'  moarning,  ith  th'  howl  oh 


1 58 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


place,  or  making  friends  with  some  vagrant  speci- 
men of  the  brute  creation  ;  now  throwing  off  a 
sketch  at  the  kitchen  table  "to  please  the  bairns," 
or  working  diligently  at  the  " Birds"  in  the  winter 
evenings  to  the  cheering  sound  of  his  beloved 

wounter,  when  in  cam  little  Jenny  runnin — "Muther!  Muther!" 
sez  she,  "  there  cums  little  Andra  Karr,  plish-plash  throw  the 
clarts  [mire],  thockin  and  blowin,  wiv  his  heels  poppin  out  ov 
clogs  every  step,  leyke  twe  little  reed  taties — wiv  a  hare's  scut  iv 
his  hat,  and  the  crown  of  his  head  and  teheyteed  hair  stanning 
up  throw't."  "  Poor  fellow"  (sez  the  Mistriss),"  aws  warn  a  keahm 
hesn't  been  iv  his  head  this  twe  months — Andra,  Andra ! — whats 
the  mayter?  .  .  .  "  Wheez  there"  (sez  the  Mistriss)  ?  "  Wey, 
there's  our  Dehym,  an  Isbel,  and  Barbary,  and  aw  so  oad  Mary, 
cummin  tappy  lappy  [full  speed]  owr  the  Stob-Cross-Hill,  and 
Jack  Gorfoot  galloping  by  Anty's  garth  neuk  on  the  oad  gray 
meer,  with  Margery  the  Howdy  behint  him,  fit  to  brik  their 
necks!" — "Aehy"  (sez  the  Mistriss),  "  and  I  mun  away  tee — 
whares  the'  fayther,  Andra?".  "Wey"  (sez  Andra),  "I  so  him 
stannun  at  th'  lown  end  oh  the  Byer,  wouv  his  jazey  neetcap  on, 
and  his  hands  iv  his  kvvoat  pockets,  beayth  thrimpt  owr  his  thees — 
and  glowrin  about,  but  I  saw  novvse  he  wis  leukin  at." — "  Sit 
down  Andra — oh  the  trow  steahyn  " — see  doon  sat  Andra,  and 
weyhpt  his  nwoase  on  his  kwoat  kuff — "  meayk  heayst  lass,  an 
bring  him  (poor  fella)  a  shive  of  butter  and  breed — cut  him  a 
good  lounge,  an  strenkle  a  teahyt  oh  sugar  on't," ' "  etc. 

This  passage,  with  its  graphic  minuteness  of  detail,  shows  that 
Bewick  could  describe  as  vividly  as  he  could  draw,  and  makes 
one  regret  that  more  of  these  studies  in  dialect  have  not  been 
preserved.  Meanwhile  Margery  the  Howdie  and  Jack  Gorfoot 
survive  in  one  of  the  tailpieces  to  the  "  Land  Birds,"  1797,  p.  1  57. 


ix.]     '^ESOjP'S  FABLES,'  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  159 


Northumberland  pipes.  Towards  the  close  of 
his  life  many  inquiring,  and  some  distinguished 
visitors  found  their  way  to  the  little  house  in 
West  Street.  One  of  these,  the  American  natu- 
ralist Audubon,  has  left  a  detailed  account  of  his 
impressions,  which  gives  a  pleasant  picture  of  the 
old  man  and  his  surroundings.  Audubon  reached 
Newcastle  in  the  middle  of  April  1827.  "  Bewick 
must  have  heard  of  my  arrival/'  ...  he  says, 
"  before  I  had  an  opportunity  of  calling  upon  him, 
for  he  sent  me  by  his  son  the  following  note  : — '  T. 
Bewicks  compliments  to  Mr.  Audubon,  and  will 
be  glad  of  the  honour  of  his  company  this  day  to 
tea  at  six  o'clock.'  These  few  words  at  once 
proved  to  me  the  kindness  of  his  nature,  and,  as 
my  labours  were  closed  for  the  day,  I  accompanied 
the  son  to  his  fathers  house.  .  .  . 

"  At  length  we  reached  the  dwelling  of  the 
Engraver,  and  I  was  at  once  shown  to  his  work- 
shop. There  I  met  the  old  man,  who,  coming 
towards  me,  welcomed  me  with  a  hearty  shake  of 
the  hand,  and  for  a  moment  took  off  a  cotton 
night-cap,  somewhat  soiled  by  the  smoke  of  the 


i6o 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


place.  He  was  a  tall  stout  man,  with  a  large 
head,  and  with  eyes  placed  farther  apart  than 
those  of  any  man  that  I  have  ever  seen :— a  perfect 
old  Englishman,  full  of  life,  although  seventy-four 
years  of  age,  active  and  prompt  in  his  labours. 
Presently  he  proposed  showing  me  the  work  he 
was  at,  and  went  on  with  his  tools.  It  was  a 
small  vignette,  cut  on  a  block  of  boxwood  not 
more  than  three  by  two  inches  in  surface,  and 
represented  a  dog  frightened  at  night  by  what 
he  fancied  to  be  living  objects,  but  which  were 
actually  roots  and  branches  of  trees,  rocks,  and 
other  objects  bearing  the  semblance  of  men.1 
This  curious  piece  of  art,  like  all  his  works,  was 
exquisite,  and  more  than  once  did  I  feel  strongly 
tempted  to  ask  a  rejected  bit,  but  was  prevented 
by  his  inviting  me  upstairs,  where,  he  said,  I 
should  soon  meet  all  the  best  artists  of  New- 
castle. 

" There  I  was  introduced  to  the  Misses  Bewick, 
amiable  and  affable  ladies,  who  manifested  all 
anxiety  to  render  my  visit  agreeable.  Among 

1  Vide  "  Memoir,"  1862,  p.  134. 


ix.]     'sE  SOP'S  FABLES^  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  161 


the  visitors  I  saw  a  Mr.  Goud,1  and  was  highly 
pleased  with  one  of  the  productions  of  his  pencil, 
a  full-length  miniature  in  oil  of  Bewick,  well  drawn, 
and  highly  finished. 

"The  old  gentleman  and  I  stuck  to  each  other, 
he  talking  of  my  drawings,  I  of  his  woodcuts. 
Now  and  then  he  would  take  off  his  cap,  and 
draw  up  his  gray  worsted  stockings  to  his  nether 
clothes ;  but  whenever  our  conversation  became 
animated,  the  replaced  cap  was  left  sticking  as  if 
by  magic  to  the  hind  part  of  his  head,  the  ne- 
glected hose  resumed  their  downward  tendency, 
his  fine  eyes  sparkled,  and  he  delivered  his  senti- 
ments with  a  freedom  and  vivacity  which  afforded 
me  great  pleasure.  He  said  he  had  heard  that 
my  drawings  had  been  exhibited  in  Liverpool, 
and  felt  great  anxiety  to  see  some  of  them,  which 
he  proposed  to  gratify  by  visiting  me  early  next 
morning  along  with  his  daughters  and  a  few 
friends.    Recollecting  at  this  moment  how  desir- 

1  This  was  T.  S.  Good  of  Berwick,  a  too  little-known  artist, 
four  of  whose  pictures  are  in  the  National  Gallery.  His  portrait 
of  Bewick  is  now  in  the  Newcastle  Natural  History  Society's 
Museum. 

M 


l62 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


ous  my  sons,  then  in  Kentucky,  were  to  have  a 
copy  of  his  works  on  Quadrupeds,  I  asked  him 
where  I  could  procure  one,  when  he  immediately 
answered  'Here/  and  forthwith  presented  me  with 
a  beautiful  set. 

"  The  tea-drinking  having  in  due  time  come 
to  an  end,  young  Bewick,  to  amuse  me,  brought  a 
bagpipe  of  a  new  construction,  called  the  Durham 
Pipe,  and  played  some  simple  Scotch,  English, 
and  Irish  airs,  all  sweet  and  pleasing  to  my  taste. 
I  could  scarcely  understand  how,  with  his  large 
fingers,  he  managed  to  cover  each  hole  separately. 
The  instrument  sounded  somewhat  like  a  haut- 
boy, and  had  none  of  the  shrill  warlike  notes  or 
booming  sound  of  the  military  bagpipe  of  the 
Scotch  Highlanders.  The  company  dispersed  at 
an  early  hour,  and  when  I  parted  from  Bewick 
that  night,  I  parted  from  a  friend." 

Audubon  seems  to  have  visited  Bewick  on 
several  subsequent  occasions,  and  they  separated 
with  mutual  regret.  He  met  him  but  once  again 
after  leaving  the  North.  This  was  when  the  old 
man  paid  his  before-mentioned  visit  to  London. 


ix.]     'yESOP'S  FABLES,'  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  163 


"  Our  interview  was  short  but  agreeable,  and 
when  he  bade  adieu,  I  was  certainly  far  from 
thinking  that  it  might  be  the  last.  But  so 
it  was,  for  only  a  very  short  time  had  elapsed 
when  I  saw  his  death  announced  in  the  news- 
papers." 1 

Bewick's  family  consisted  of  a  son  and  three 
daughters,  all  of  whom  survived  him.  His  wife, 
to  whom  he  was  devotedly  attached,  and  with 
whom  (he  says)  he  had  spent  "  a  lifetime  of  un- 
interrupted happiness,"  died  in  February  1826, 
aged  seventy -two.  She  seldom  figures  in  the 
"Memoir,"  but  the  following  letter,  written  to  her 
by  her  husband  from  Wycliffe  in  1 791,  gives  a 
pleasant  idea  of  their  relations.  Had  it  not 
been  already  published  in  the  "  Natural  History 
Transactions  of  Northumberland,"  etc.,  there 
might  have  been  a  certain  hesitation  in  giving 
so  domestic  a  communication  to  the  world. 
As  it  is,  no  one,  we  think,  can  read  it  without 
being  struck  by  its  genuine  and  simply  expressed 
affection. 

1  "  Ornithological  Biography,"  1835,  ni-  PP-  3°°-2>  3°3- 


164 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


"  Wy  cliff e,  Aug.  8th,  1 791. 
"  My  Dear  Bell  —  I  never  opened  a  letter 
with  more  anxiety  nor  read  one  with  more  plea- 
sure in  my  life  than  I  did  my  Bell's,  last  week.  To 
hear  of  you  being  all  well  gave  me  the  greatest  of 
pleasures.  How  desirous  am  I  to  hear  of  your  still 
continuing  so. — My  dear  little  boy  is  hardly  ever 
out  of  my  mind.  I  hope  the  sea  will  mend  him. 
If  upon  my  return  I  find  him  recovered  I  think  I 
shall  be  frantic  with  joy. —  Indeed  if  upon  my 
return  I  find  you  all  well  I  shall  look  upon  my 
fireside  at  the  Forth  like  a  little  Heaven. — I  hope 
I  shall,  when  I  return,  but  I  think  it  will  be  about 
3  weeks  yet  before  I  have  that  pleasure.  The 
young  Gentleman  has  sent  Mr.  Collier  notice  that 
he  will  not  be  at  this  place  till  -the  latter  end  of 
the  month.  I  have  plenty  of  work  before  me  to 
keep  me  closely  employed  a  much  longer  time 
but  I  am  tired  out  already  and  wish  it  was  over. 
I  have  dulled  myself  with  sticking  to  it  so  closely. 
In  short  I  lose  no  time  in  order  to  get  through 
with  the  business.  When  you  write  again  tell  me 
when  you  will  be  at  the  Forth  lest  I  should  be  at 


ix.]     'sE  SOP'S  FABLES,'  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  165 


a  loss  where  to  direct  to  you.  Also  tell  me  how 
you  all  are  for  that  is  everything  with  me.  Take 
care  when  you  return  to  the  Forth  lest  the  beds 
should  be  damp  by  your  long  absence.  Tell  Jane 
and  Robert  that  if  they  behave  well  I  will  let 
them  see  a  vast  of  little  pictures  of  Birds  when  I 
come  home,  and  I  hope  my  little  Bell  will  be  able 
to  say  more  than  dadda  when  I  see  her  again. — I 
am,  with  compls.  to  all,  my  Bell's  loving  husband, 

Thomas  Bewick." 

Robert  Elliot  Bewick,  the  "  Robert  "  of  this 
letter,  and  the  musician  of  the  Durham  pipe,  died 
unmarried  in  July  1849,  and  was  buried  in  Oving- 
ham  Churchyard.  He  seems  all  his  life  to  have 
suffered  from  ill-health.  He  copied  nature  with 
great  fidelity,  and  wras  exceedingly  minute  and 
patient ;  but  as  an  engraver  he  never  developed 
the  latent  talent  which  his  father  believed  him  to 
possess.  Besides  some  undistinguished  assistance 
in  the  "  Fables  of  ^Esop,"  he  worked  upon  the 
projected  "  History  of  British  Fishes."  The 
"  Maigre,"  a  copperplate  of  which  is  given  at  the 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


end  of  the  "  Memoir/'  bears  his  signature  ;  and 
in  the  same  book  Miss  Bewick  says  that  her 
brother  left  behind  him  "  about  fifty  highly-finished 
and  accurately-coloured  drawings  of  fishes 1  from 
nature,  together  with  a  portion  of  the  descriptive 
matter  relating  to  the  work/'  which  he  had  pur- 
posed to  complete,  although  he  never  carried  out 
his  intention.  Perhaps,  as  he  once  told  a  gentle- 
man at  Newcastle,  he  was  honestly  "  afeard,"  and 
recognised  his  incapacity  to  follow  with  credit  in 
his  fathers  footsteps.  Of  the  three  daughters, 
the  youngest,  Elizabeth,  died  in  1865.  Jane,  the 
eldest  of  the  family,  who  edited  the  "  Memoir," 
survived  until  7th  April  1881,  being  then  ninety- 
four.  She  is  described  as  a  most  delightful  and 
intelligent  old  lady,  full  of  affectionate  veneration 
for  Thomas  Bewick's  memory,  and  abounding  in 
anecdote  respecting  his  works  and  ways.2  The 
only  remaining  member  of  the  group,  Isabella, 

1  These  drawings,  which  form  part  of  the  Bewick  bequest  to 
the  British  Museum,  are  very  beautiful.  Special  attention  may- 
be drawn  to  those  of  the  Gurnard,  the  Lump  Sucker,  and  the 
John  Dory. 

2  An  extract  from  one  of  her  letters  is  printed  at  pp.  51-2  (note). 


ix.]     'JESOP'S  FABLES;  BEWICK'S  DEATH.  167 


lingered  for  two  years  longer,  and  died  in  June 
1883,  aged  ninety-three.    Not  long  before  her 
death  she  anticipated  a  bequest  which  she  had 
agreed  upon  with  her  sister  Jane,  and  trans- 
ferred to  the  British  Museum  a  number  of  water- 
colours  and  woodcuts  by  her  father,  his  brother 
John,  and  his  son.    Some  further  family  relics — 
engravings,  books,  and  so   forth  —  were  lately 
(February  1884)  sold  at  Newcastle  by  order  of 
Miss  Isabella  Bewick's  executors,  who  have  also 
since  presented  several  valuable  portraits,  draw- 
ings, and  prints  to  the  Newcastle  Natural  History 
Society's  Museum.1    At  a  future  sale,2  which  is 
to  take  place  in  London,  the  blocks  for  the  two 
volumes  of  the  "  Birds,"  the  "  Quadrupeds,"  the 
"  Fables  of  ^Esop,"  and  the  "Memoir,"  all  of 
which  are  said  to  be  in  excellent  condition,  will 
come  under  the  hammer.    These  represent,  or 
perhaps  we  should  say  include,  most  of  Bewicks 
masterpieces.    The  remaining  blocks  of  import- 

1  A  list  of  these  is  to  be  found  at  the  end  of  this  volume. 

2  This  sale  took  place  on  the  6th  May  1884,  the  blocks 
becoming  the  property  of  Messrs.  Ward  of  Newcastle  (Miss 
Bewick's  legatees)  for  .£2350. 


i68 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


ance,  the  "  Select  Fables"  excepted,  belong  to 
Newcastle  collectors, — the  majority  of  them  {i.e. 
those  for  "  Goldsmith's  and  Parnell's  Poems," 
Somervile's  "Chase,"  the  "  Hive,"  etc.)  being  at 
present  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Robert  Robinson, 
of  Pilgrim  Street.  "  Waiting  for  Death  "  and  the 
"  Chillingham  Bull "  are  owned  by  Mr.  Thomas 
Gow  of  Cambo  ;  while  Mr.  T.  W.  U.  Robinson, 
of  Houghton-le-Spring,  has  the  "  Bay  Pony"  em- 
ployed in  1 80 1  as  the  frontispiece  to  the  pamphlet 
entitled  the  "Sportsman's  Friend." 

There  are  numerous  likenesses  of  Bewick. 
His  grandniece,  Miss  Bewick  of  Cherryburn,  has 
a  picture  of  him  when  young  by  George  Gray. 
Then  there  is  the  well-known  engraving  by  T.  A. 
Kidd  in  1798,  after  Miss  Kirkley.  At  West 
Street,  when  Miss  Isabella  Bewick  died,  were 
two  portraits,  one  being  that  by  Good  of  Berwick, 
which  Audubon  refers  to  ;  the  other  the  original 
of  the  plate  issued  by  Burnet  in  181 7,  after  James 
Ramsay.1    At  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  is 

1  This,  together  with  the  Good,  the  Kirkley,  and  Plymer's 
and  Summerfield's  miniatures,  is  now  in  the  Newcastle  Natural 
History  Society's  Museum. 


ix.]    'sESOP'S  FABLES;  BEWICK'S  DEATH,  169 


another  half-length  by  Ramsay,  dated  1823,  and 
purchased  by  the  Trustees  in  1871.  A  third 
and  very  popular  Ramsay  is  the  little  full-length 
engraved  by  F.  Bacon  in  1852,  which  belongs  to 
Mr.  R.  S.  Newall  of  Ferndene,  Gateshead.  Mr. 
Thomas  E.  Crawhall,  of  Condercum,  possesses 
the  water-colour  sketch  by  Nicholson,  recently 
etched  by  Leopold  Flameng  for  the  Fine  Arts 
Society.  Another  portrait  by  Nicholson,  taken  at 
Chillingham,  and  excellently  engraved  by  Charlton 
Nesbit,  formed  the  frontispiece  to  Charnley's 
"  Select  Fables"  of  1820.  Besides  these  there  is 
a  third  picture  by  Nicholson,  engraved  by  T.  E. 
Ranson  in  18 16  ;  a  miniature,  engraved  in  the 
same  year  by  J.  Summerfield,  after  Murphy  ;  and 
a  miniature  by  Plymer.  Lastly,  there  is  the  bust 
by  E.  H.  Baily,  R.A.,  reproduced  at  page  133, 
for  which  Bewick  sat  in  1825.  Of  this  Mr. 
Atkinson  writes:  — "  Bailey's  {sic)  bust  in  the 
library  of  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society, 
of  this  town  [Newcastle],  is  certainly  the  best 
representation  of  him,  giving  the  very  spirit  and 
expression  of  his  face,  and  descending  to  the 


i7o 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap.  IX. 


peculiarities  of  the  veins  on  the  temple,  the  quid 
in  the  lip  [Bewick,  like  Henry  Fielding,  indulged 
in  the  objectionable  habit  of  1  chewing '],  and  the 
tufts  of  hair  in  the  ears."  It  is  said  that  the  artist 
wished  to  drape  his  model  in  the  classic  manner. 
The  old  man,  however,  with  the  imperious  per- 
tinacity of  a  Cromwell,  insisted  upon  absolute 
fidelity,  not  merely  to  his  coat  and  ruffled  shirt, 
but  to  the  "  beauty  spots,"  as  he  called  them, 
which  the  smallpox  had  left  upon  his  face. 


bewick's  thumb-mark,    (from  the  receipt  for 

"  FABLES  OF  ^ESOP,"  l8l8.) 


CHAPTER  X. 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 

Writing  to  George  Lawford,  the  publisher,  in 
February  1828,  not  many  months  before  his  death, 
and  speaking  of  the  first  series  of  Northcote's 
"  Fables,"  Bewick  says  :  "  Little  did  I  think,  while 
I  was  sitting  whistling  at  my  workbench,1  that  wood- 
engraving  would  be  brought  so  conspicuously  for- 
ward, and  that  I  should  have  pupils  to  take  the 
lead,  in  that  branch  of  the  art,  in  the  great  Metro- 
polis ;  but  old  as  I  am,  and  tottering  on  the  down- 
hill of  life,  my  ardour  is  not  a  bit  abated,  and  I 
hope  those  who  have  succeeded  me  will  pursue 
that  department  of  engraving  still  further  towards 
perfection/'    The  accent  of  satisfaction  in  these 

1  Bewick  was  an  indefatigable  whistler,  an  accomplishment 
upon  which  Dovaston  dilates  with  his  accustomed  grandiloquence. 


172 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


words  is  not  unnatural,  and  the  improvement  of 
wood-engraving  since  they  were  penned  has  cer- 
tainly been  greater  than  Bewick  ever  anticipated. 
Still,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  its 
progress  down  to  1828,  and,  indeed,  for  some  years 
subsequently,  was  either  very  rapid  or  very  re- 
markable. Since  the  publication  of  the  second 
volume  of  the  "  Birds,"  in  1804,  Bewick  himself 
had  done  nothing  of  importance,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  "^Esop's  Fables."  Johnson  and  John 
Bewick  had  long  been  dead.  Charlton*  Nesbit, 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  elder  pupils  as  an 
engraver  pure  and  simple,  had  retired  to  his 
native  village,  and  might  practically  be  regarded 
as  forgotten.  Luke  Clennell,  the  genius  of  the 
group,  had  been  insane  since  181 7,  and  for  some 
time  before  had  transferred  his  energies  to  paint- 
ing ;  while  Harvey,  Bewick's  favourite,  was  fast 
acquiring  a  reputation  as  a  designer.  A  few  pro- 
fessed draughtsmen  upon  wood  and  half  a  dozen 
engravers  seem  to  have  sufficed  to  the  demand. 
"  The  professors  of  wood-engraving  [in  Bewicks 
time],"  says  Fairholt,  "might  be  counted  by  units." 


X.] 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 


i73 


"  There  were  not  more  than  three  masters  in 
London  who  had  sufficient  business  to  employ, 
even  occasionally,  an  assistant,  and  to  keep  an 
apprentice  or  two,"  says  another  writer.  If  we 
turn  from  these  authorities  to  such  treatises  as 
Landseers  and  Craig's  " Lectures,"  the  record  of 
wood-engraving  is  meagre  and  apologetic,  and  it 
is  easy  to  see  that  it  was  scarcely  regarded  as  a 
formidable  rival  to  engraving  upon  metal.  But 
in  1828,  when  Bewick  wrote  the  above  letter,  its 
hour  was  not  the  less  at  hand.  The  publications 
of  the  recently  established  "  Society  for  the  Dif- 
fusion of  Useful  Knowledge  "  were  already  offer- 
ing it  a  field  which  promised  to  be  extensive. 
Then  in  1832  came  the  "  Penny  Magazine"  and 
the  "  Saturday  Magazine,"1  which,  aided  by  the 

1  "  The  art  of  wood-engraving  itself  has  received  an  astonishing 
impetus  from  these  publications.  The  engraver,  instead  of  working 
merely  with  his  own  hands,  has  been  obliged  to  take  five  or  six 
pupils  to  get  through  the  work "  (Mr.  Cowper's  evidence  before 
the  Select  Committee  on  Arts  and  Manufactures,  1835).  It  is 
difficult  nowadays  to  understand  what  a  revelation  these  two 
periodicals,  with  their  representations  of  far  countries  and  foreign 
animals,  of  masterpieces  of  painting  and  sculpture,  were  to  middle- 
class  households  fifty  years  ago.  The  present  writer,  though  he 
can  scarcely  go  back  so  far,  still  remembers,  with  gratitude,  that 


174 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


improvements  in  stereotype  founding,  gave  an 
extraordinary  impetus  to  wood-engraving,  and  the 
names  of  Jackson  and  Branston  and  Landells,  of 
the  two  Whympers  and  Sears,  of  Bonner,  Baxter, 
Lee,  began  to  be  current  on  mens  tongues.  As, 
with  the  decline  of  the  "  Annuals,"  engraving  on 
steel  and  copper,  for  purposes  of  book  illustration, 
gradually  fell  into  disuse,  engraving  on  wood 
increased  in  scope  and  popularity,  and  its  advance 
since  that  time  has  been  continuous  and  un- 
checked. 

From  what  has  been  said  above  it  will  be 
gathered  that  Bewick  had  no  "school,"  in  the 
sense  in  which  that  word  is  used  by  those  who 
inherit  the  manner  and  the  method  of  some 
individual  artist.  The  pupils  who  quitted  him  to 
seek  their  fortunes  in  London,  either  made  their 
way  with  difficulty  or  turned  to  other  pursuits, 
and  the  real  popularisation  of  wood-engraving 
did  not  take  place  until  some  years  after  his  death. 

to  Mr.  Fairholt's  careful  copies  of  Hogarth's  prints  in  the  old 
"  Penny  Magazine,"  he  is  indebted  for  an  enthusiasm  which  has 
never  since  deserted  him. 


X.] 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 


175 


Still,  the  careers  of  his  principal  apprentices  are 
not  wholly  without  interest  ;  and  some  brief 
account  of  them  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

Charlton  Nesbit,  who  comes  first  in  order, 
has  this  in  particular,  that,  unlike  Harvey  and 
Clennell,  he  lived  and  died  an  engraver.  As  a 
matter  of  course  he  was  a  draughtsman,  but  we 
have  found  no  record  that  he  either  painted  or 
designed,  at  all  events  to  any  extent.  Accident, 
moreover,  appears  to  have  favoured  this  limitation 
of  his  functions,  for  the  acquirement  of  sufficient 
independent  means  in  middle  life  made  it  un- 
necessary for  him  to  follow  up  very  pertinaciously 
what,  about  18 10,  was  apparently  a  precarious 
calling,  still  less  to  turn  to  other  departments  of 
art  for  a  subsistence.  Little  is  known  respecting 
his  life  that  is  unconnected  with  his  work.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  keelman  at  Swalwell,  a  town  in 
Durham,  on  the  banks  of  the  Tyne,  and  was  born 
in  1775.  About  1789  he  was  apprenticed  to 
Bewick  and  Beilby;  and  it  is  alleged  that  the 
bird's  nest  which  figures  above  the  preface  to 


i76 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


vol.  i.  of  the  "  Birds/'1  as  well  as  the  majority  of 
the  vignettes  and  tailpieces  to  the  "  Poems  of 
Goldsmith  and  Parnell,"  were  engraved  by  him 
during  his  pupilage.    In  1797  or  8,  he  executed  a 


st.  Nicholas's  church,    (reduced  from  nesbit's  cut  after  johnson.) 


block  of  St.  Nicholas's  Church,  after  a  water-colour 
drawing  by  Robert  Johnson,  which  is  still  in  the 
possession  of  a  Newcastle  collector.    For  this  he 

1  In  the  "  Treatise  on  Wood-Engraving  "  it  is  stated  that  he 
drew  it  as  well ;  and  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  he  himself 
supplied  this  information  to  Mr.  Chatto. 


X.] 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 


177 


received,  not  the  "gold  palette,"  as  stated  by 
Mackenzie,  nor  "a  medal,"  as  stated  by  Mr. 
Chatto,  but  the  lesser  silver  palette  of  the  "  Society 
of  Arts,"  to  whom  he  presented  an  impression 
of  the  cut,  at  that  time  one  of  the  largest  ever 
engraved,  as  it  measured,  with  the  border,  fifteen 
inches  by  twelve.  About  1 799  he  came  to  London. 
In  1802  he  obtained  a  silver  medal  from  the 
Society  of  Arts  for  "Engravings  on  Wood,"  being 
then  described  as  "Mr.  C.  Nesbit, of  Fetter  Lane." 
In  1 81 5  he  returned  to  his  native  place,  where  he 
lived  in  retirement,  working  at  rare  intervals  for 
the  London  and  Newcastle  booksellers.  He 
visited  London  again  in  1830,  and  died  at  Queen's 
Elm,  Brompton,  in  November  1838. 

The  two  principal  designers  upon  the  wood 
when  Nesbit  first  came  to  London  were  John 
Thurston,  originally  a  copperplate  engraver,  and 
William  Marshall  Craig,  a  miniature  painter, 
water-colour  painter,  and  artistic  jack-of-all-trades. 
The  former  drew  with  exceptional  skill,  and 
thoroughly  understood  the  requirements  of  his 
material ;  the  latter,  who  designated  himself  "draw- 

N 


i78 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


ing-master  to  the  Princess  Charlotte  of  Wales/' 
and  in  1821  had  acquired  sufficient  position  to 
lecture  before  the  "  Royal  Institution,"  was  a 
person  of  greatly  inferior  abilities.  From  the  fact 
that  "  Nesbit,  sc."  is  to  be  found  as  early  as  1800 
upon  the  frontispiece  of  an  edition  of  Bloomfield's 
"  Farmers  Boy,"  published  by  Vernor  and  Hood, 
it  is  clear  that  he  must  have  been  employed  almost 
immediately  upon  the  work  of  Thurston,  by  whom 
this  particular  illustration  was  designed  ;  and  his 
(Nesbit's)  name  is  also  included  among  the  other 
engravers  engaged  by  Craig  for  the  commonplace 
" Scripture  Illustrated"  issued  in  1806.  Many 
of  the  cuts  to  Wallis  and  Scholey's  "  History  of 
England  "  also  bear  Nesbit's  signature.  But  his 
best  work  about  this  date  is  to  be  found  in  the 
"Religious  Emblems"  published  by  Ackermann 
in  1809.  This,  according  to  the  preface,  was  in- 
tended by  its  projector  "  to  draw  into  one  focus 
all  the  talent  of  the  day";  and,  as  a  landmark  in 
the  history  of  wood-engraving  in  England,  its 
position  is  a  conspicuous  one.  The  designs — and 
the  fact  is  significant  after  the  foregoing  announce- 


X.] 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 


179 


ment — were  without  exception  supplied  by  Thur- 
ston.1 Regarded  from  an  art  point  of  view,  and 
as  designs  alone,  it  is  impossible  to  praise  these 
very  highly.  Compared  with  Adrian  van  der 
Venne's  illustrations  to  the  emblems  of  Jacob  Cats, 
or  even  with  the  efforts  of  the  late  C.  H.  Bennett, 
they  show  a  poverty  of  invention  which  at  times 
is  almost  beggarly.  The  "  Destruction  of  Death 
and  Sin "  is  typified  by  two  prostrate  figures  at 
the  foot  of  a  cross  ;  "  Fertilising  Rills  "  is  a  land- 
scape that  might  stand  for  anything;  "  Fainting 
for  the  Living  Waters  "  is  a  limp  female  figure 
hanging  Mazeppa-like  upon  a  wounded  stag;  and 
Death  felling  trees  is  the  only  thing  which  the 
artist  could  think  of  to  symbolise  pictorially  the 
common  fate  of  humanity.  These,  however,  are 
the  least  successful  plates,  and,  setting  imagination 
aside,  they  are  nearly  all  distinguished  by  skill  in 
composition  and  the  arrangement  of  light  and 
shade.    Besides  those  by  Nesbit,  the  cuts  are 

1  So  says  the  title-page.  But  there  is  a  water-colour  of  an 
"  allegorical  subject,"  by  Henry  Tresham,  R.A.,  at  South  Ken- 
sington, which  strangely  resembles  Thurston's  "  Sinners  hiding  in 
the  Grave."    Tresham  died  in  18 14. 


i8o 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


engraved  by  Branston,  Clennell,  and  Hole, — the 
last  two  being  also  pupils  of  Bewick.  Hole's 
solitary  "  Seed  Sown  "  is  one  of  the  best  pieces  of 
work  in  the  book.  Clennell  and  Branston  are 
about  equal  in  merit,  but  the  honours  belong 
to  Nesbit.  His  "  Hope  Departing/'  "  Joyful 
Retribution,"  and  "Sinners  Hiding  in  the  Grave," 
the  first  especially,  are  almost  faultless  examples 
of  patient  and  accomplished  execution.  "  The 
World  Weighed,"  the  "  Daughters  of  Jerusalem," 
and  "Wounded  in  the  Mental  Eye,"  are  nearly  as 
good  ;  but  as  compositions  they  are  less  attractive 
than  the  others,  and  do  not  offer  the  same  oppor- 
tunities for  the  skilful  opposition  of  black  and 
white  which  seems  specially  to  characterise 
Nesbit's  manner.  Yet,  all  things  considered,  they 
afford  better  examples  of  his  abilities  than  either 
the  large  cut  of  "  Rinaldo  and  Armida,"  or  the 
illustrations — gems  as  some  of  them  are — to 
Northcote's  "Fables." 

The  "Rinaldo  and  Armida"  is  Nesbit's  most 
ambitious  block.  It  was  engraved  in  1818  for 
the  "Practical  Hints  on  Decorative  Printing" 


X.] 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 


181 


of  William  Savage,  the  printer,  which,  after  long 
delays,  was  published  in  1822.  One  feature  of  the 
book  was  to  have  been  four  highly-finished  plates 
by  the  most  eminent  wood-engravers  of  the  day. 
But  Bewick  (whose  name  appears  on  the  list  of 
subscribers)  was  too  busy  with  "  ^Esop's  Fables  " 
to  give  any  assistance  ;  Clennell,  who  was  to  have 
engraved  a  drawing  by  Stothard,  had  already 
broken  down ;  and  Branston  and  Nesbit  were 
the  only  contributors.  They  engraved  three  of 
Thurston's  designs.  Branston's  subject,  from  Book 
I.  of  the  "  Faerie  Queen,"  was  the  "  Cave  of 
Despair,"  which  ranks  as  one  of  the  artist's  most 
successful  conceptions.  Nesbit's  were  the  "  Female 
and  Boy,"  of  which  an  electrotype  is  given  at  page 
69  of  Linton's  "  Hints  on  Wood-Engraving,"  and 
"  Rinaldo  and  Armida"  in  the  enchanted  garden, 
from  the  "  Gerusalemme  Liberata"  of  Tasso.  As 
far  as  the  execution  of  the  background  and  acces- 
sories of  the  latter  is  concerned,  we  doubt  if  they 
could  be  excelled,  even  at  this  day ;  but  the  figures 
have  a  "  dotted  appearance/'  resulting  from  the 
fact  that  Thurston  required  the  engraver  to  reduce 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


the  strength  of  the  lines,  which  were  "  originally 
continuous  and  distinct."  Apart  from  this,  how- 
ever, the  knight  and  enchantress  are  poorly  and 
even  unpleasantly  conceived.  The  "soft  breast" 
of  Armida,  which  recurs  so  often  in  the  fine  old 
translation  of  Fairfax,  has  the  hardness  and  polish 
of  metal ;  while  the  figure  of  Rinaldo  is  marked 
by  a  reposeless  and  over-accented  muscularity, 
which  seems  to  have  been  one  of  Thurston's 
besetting  sins.  To  give  rarity  to  this  block,  it 
was  defaced  by  criss-cross  saw-marks,  and  impres- 
sions taken  after  it  had  been  so  treated  are  given 
in  Savage's  book  as  an  evidence  of  good  faith. 
As  might  have  been  predicted,  the  block  was  later 
carefully  repaired,  and  copies  of  it  are  still  to  be 
found  in  the  market  as  "original  impressions." 
Such  a  one  (bought,  alas !  in  too  confiding  a 
moment)  lies  now  before  us ;  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  traces  of  the  merciless  steel 
have  been  filled  in  with  remarkable  ingenuity, 
although  they  are  easily  detected  by  an  instructed 
eye. 

The  "Rinaldo  and  Armida"  must  have  been 


X.] 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 


i*3 


executed  during  Nesbit's  seclusion  at  Swalwell. 
Besides  the  likeness  of  Bewick  after  Nicholson, 
prefixed  to  Charnley's  "  Select  Fables/'  the 
only  other  works  of  importance  that  belong  to 
this  date  are  those  he  contributed  to  the  first 


IN  THE  STOCKS.     (ENGRAVED  BY  NESBIT  FOR  BUTLER'S  "  HUDIBRAS,"  l8ll.) 


series  of  Northcote's  "  Fables,"  a  book  to  which 
we  shall  return  more  at  length  in  speaking  of 
Harvey.  The  best  of  these  is  the  "Self-Im- 
portant." After  his  return  to  London,  in  1830, 
he  was  employed  upon  the  second  series,  which 
contains  some  of  his  most  finished  workmanship. 
The  cut  of  the  "  Hare  and  the  Bramble,"  p.  127, 


184 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  modern  wood- 
engravings.  In  addition  to  the  above-mentioned 
books,  he  also  engraved  illustrations  for  "  Shake- 
speare, "    "  Hudibras, "    Somervile's    "  Chase," 


THE  SELF-IMPORTANT.     (ENGRAVED  BY  NESBIT  FOR  NORTHCOTE's  "  FABLEP,"  1828.) 

Stevens'  "  Lecture  on  Heads,''  and  the  numerous 
reprints  of  Sir  Egerton  Brydges.    His  cut  to  the 
memory  of  Robert  Johnson,  after  Johnson's  own 
design,  is  also  much  sought  after  by  collectors. 
Nesbit's  fifteen  years'  absence  from  activity, 


X.] 


CHARLTON  NESBIT. 


185 


and  the  relatively  small  number  of  his  produc- 
tions, make  the  record  of  his  life  of  the  briefest ; 
and — as  must  be  confessed — we  have  not  been 
able,  after  considerable  pains,  to  add  largely  to 
the  facts  already  collected  respecting  him.  But 


the  cock,  the  dog,  and  the  fox.    (engraved  by  nesbit  for 
northcote's  "fables,"  1833.) 


the  excellence  of  his  work  as  a  wood-engraver 
will  always  demand  a  record  in  the  story  of  the 
revival  of  the  art.  In  this  respect  he  was  the 
best  of  Bewick's  pupils,  and  his  achievement  was 
in  all  probability  greater  than  that  of  his  fellows, 
because  he  was  not  tempted  beyond  the  limits  of 
his  craft. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 

The  surname  of  Bewick's  next  pupil  is  a  familiar 
one  to  Northumbrians.  There  is,  in  fact,  a 
manor  of  Clennell  on  the  east  side  of  the  river 
Alwine,  not  far  from  Alwinton  ;  and  there  was 
even  an  actual  Luke  Clennell  of  that  ilk  who  was 
high-sheriff  of  Northumberland  in  1727.  Whether 
the  present  Luke  Clennell  was  in  any  way  related 
to  this  family  has  not  been  chronicled.  He  was 
born  at  Ulgham,  near  Morpeth,  on  the  8th  of 
April  1 78 1,  being  the  son  of  a  respectable  farmer. 
After  covering  his  slate  with  sketches  instead 
of  sums,  an  incident  so  persistently  repeated  in 
artistic  biography  that  it  seems  to  be  an  almost 
indispensable  preliminary  to  distinction,  he  began 
life,  like  Chodowiecki,  as  a  grocer,  or,  as  others 


CHAP.  XI.] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


187 


say,  a  tanner.  Here,  if  tradition  is  to  be  believed, 
he  got  into  trouble,  owing  to  an  ill-timed  likeness 
of  an  unsympathetic  customer  rashly  depicted  ad 
vivum  upon  a  convenient  shop-door  ;  and  some  of 
his  other  drawings  having  attracted  attention,  his 
uncle,  Thomas  Clennell,  of  Morpeth,  placed  him 
with  Bewick.  This  was  in  April  1797.  With 
Bewick  he  remained  seven  years,  and  during  his 
apprenticeship  is  said  to  have  transferred  to  the 
block,  and  afterward  engraved,  a  number  of 
Robert  Johnson's  designs,  which  were  used  as 
tailpieces  for  the  second  volume  of  the  "  Birds." 
He  speedily  became  an  expert  draughtsman  and 
sketcher,  and,  like  his  master,  was  accustomed 
to  make  frequent  excursions  into  the  country  in 
search  of  nature  and  the  picturesque.  His  term 
of  apprenticeship  must  have  expired  in  April 
1804;  and,  either  shortly  before  this  date  or 
immediately  after  it,  he  executed  a  number  of 
cuts  for  the  si  Hive  of  Ancient  and  Modern 
Literature,"  a  selection  of  essays,  allegories,  and 
"  instructive  Compositions"  in  the  "Blossoms  of 
Morality  "  manner,  made  by  Solomon  Hodgson, 


i88 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


Bewick's  old  partner  in  the  "  Quadrupeds."  The 
third  edition  of  this  was  published  in  1806,  and, 
according  to  Hugo,  contains  fourteen  cuts  by 
Bewick.  This  would  give  the  majority  of  the 
illustrations  to  Clennell,  who  presumably  designed 
as  well  as  engraved  them.  That  to  the  first  part 
of  the  "  Story  of  Melissa,"  a  pretty  little  cut,  bears 
his  initials,  and  they  are  to  be  found  on  the 
"  Northumberland  Lifeboat."  Some  of  the  re- 
maining cuts  are  also  signed,  and  many  of  the 
rest  may  be  confidently  attributed  to  him  ;  but 
those  above  mentioned  are  among  the  best. 

Besides  the  engravings  for  the  "  Hive,"  he 
continued,  after  his  apprenticeship  was  concluded, 
to  work  for  Bewick  on  the  illustrations  to  Wallis 
and  Scholey's  "  History  of  England,"  already 
referred  to  in  our  account  of  Nesbit.  Finding, 
however,  that  Bewick  received  the  greater  part 
of  the  money,  he  put  himself  into  direct  com- 
munication with  the  proprietors,  the  result  being 
that  they  invited  him  to  London,  where  he  arrived 
in  the  autumn  of  1 804  ;  and  one  of  the  earliest 
indications  of  his  residence  in  the  Metropolis  is  his 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


receipt,  in  May  1806,  of  the  "gold  palette"  of  the 
Society  of  Arts  for  "an  engraving  on  wood  of  a 
Battle."  Among  other  books  upon  which  he  was 
engaged  were  Craig's  "Scripture  Illustrated"  and 
Beattie's  "  Minstrel,"  1807,  from  the  designs  of  the 
indispensable  Thurston.  Another  volume  belong- 
ing to  this  period  was  Falconer's  "Shipwreck," 
1808,  which  contains  a  well-known  picture  of  a 
ship  in  a  gale  of  wind,  the  manner  of  which  is  of 
itself  almost  sufficient  to  prove  his  authorship  of 
some  of  the  marine  tailpieces  in  vol.  ii.  of  the 
"  Birds."  This  cut  was  executed  at  Twickenham 
in  September  1807,  and  was  much  improved  by 
Clennell  in  the  engraving.  In  1809  appeared  the 
"  Religious  Emblems,"  of  which  we  have  already 
given  a  sufficient  description.  Clennells  best 
cuts  in  this  are  the  "Call  to  Vigilance"  and  the 
"  Soul  Encaged,"  but  the  least  successful  of  the 
series  are  also  engraved  by  him. 

Some  time  after  his  arrival  in  London,  Clennell 
married  ;  the  exact  date  is  not  known.  His  wife 
was  the  eldest  daughter  of  Charles  Warren,  the 
copperplate  engraver,  a  worthy  rival  of  Abraham 


190 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


Raimbach,  Finden,  and  the  little  knot  of  talented 
men  who,  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century, 
emulated  each  other  in  producing  the  delicate  book- 
embellishments  issued  by  Sharpe,  Du  Rovery,  and 
others.  Clennell's  introduction  to  this  society 
had,  no  doubt,  an  important  influence  over  his 
future  career.  After  Ackermann's  "  Emblems," 
his  next  work  of  importance  wTas  a  large  block  for 
the  diploma  of  the  Highland  Society.  For  this, 
in  1809,  he  received  the  gold  medal  of  the  Society 
of  Arts.  Benjamin  West  made  the  design,  which 
consists  of  a  circular  frame  containing  an  allegor- 
ical group,  and  flanked  by  two  larger  figures  of 
a  fisherman  and  a  Highland  soldier.  Thurston 
copied  the  figures  within  the  frame  on  the  wood  ; 
Clennell  himself  drew  the  supporters.  After  he 
had  worked  upon  it  for  a  couple  of  months,  the 
block,  which  was  of  box  veneered  upon  beech,  had 
the  same  fate  that  befell  the  "  Chillingham  Bull "; 
it  split,  but  irremediably,  and  history  relates  that 
the  chagrined  artist,  in  a  fit  of  disgust,  flung  the 
tea-things  into  the  fire.  In  a  few  days,  however, 
he  procured  a  fresh  block,  induced  Thurston  to 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


91 


redraw  the  figures,  and  this  time  successfully  com- 
pleted his  work,  an  example  of  which  may  be  seen 
in  the  collection  of  woodcuts  at  the  South  Ken- 


DIPLOMA  OF  THE  HIGHLAND  SOCIETY.     (REDUCED  FROM 

clennell's  CUT.) 


sington  Museum.1  It  is  thoroughly  characteristic 
of  his  style — a  style  rather  energetic  than  fine,  and 
more  spirited  than  minutely  patient.  Fortune  (it 
should  be  added)  was  once  more  unfavourable  to 

1  The  bequest  of  John  Thompson,  the  engraver. 


192 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


the  block,  which  was  burnt  in  a  fire  at  Bensleys 
printing-office ;  but  the  subject  was  subsequently 
engraved  by  John  Thompson. 

Clennell's  last  work  of  any  moment  as  a  wood- 
engraver  is  the  series  of  cuts  which  illustrate 
Rogers's  "  Pleasures   of   Memory,  with  Other 


HEADPIECE  BY  CLENNELL  AFTER  STOTHARD.     (FROM  ROGERS'S 
"  PLEASURES  OF  MEMORY,"  l8lO.) 

Poems."  This  is  usually  dated  1812;  but  the 
copy  before  us,  which  has  Clennell's  name  as 
engraver  upon  its  title-page,  bears  the  imprint 
of  1 8 10.  This  little  volume  has  an  established 
reputation  with  collectors,  and  the  excellence  of 
the  cuts  as  enlightened  renderings  of  pen-and-ink 
sketches  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated.    The  touch 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


i93 


and  spirit  of  the  originals  is  given  with  rare  fidel- 
ity, thoroughly  to  appreciate  which  it  is  only 
necessary  to  contrast  them  with  some  of  the  later 
copies  in  the  modern  editions  of  Rogers.  Many 
of  the  compositions  have  all  the  lucid  charm  of 
antique  gems,  and,  indeed,  may  actually  have  been 
copies  of  them,  since  the  "  Marriage  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche,"  p.  140,  is  plainly  intended  for  the  famous 
sardonyx  in  the  Marlborough  collection. 

Toward  1809  or  18 10,  and  probably  owing  to 
the  enlarged  views  of  art  acquired  in  his  father-in- 
law's  circle,  Clennell  seems  virtually  to  have  relin- 
quished engraving  for  painting  and  designing.  He 
had,  in  all  likelihood,  been  preluding  in  this  latter 
direction  for  some  time,  as  there  is  an  engrav- 
ing by  Mantin  in  the  British  Museum  after  one  of 
his  designs  which  dates  as  far  back  as  1803,  an^ 
he  made  many  of  the  sketches  for  Scott's  "  Border 
Antiquities."  In  the  Kensington  Museum  there 
is,  besides  other  sketches,  a  water-colour  drawing 
called  the  "  Sawpit,"  dated  18 10,  which  was  shown 
at  the  Exhibition  of  1862  ;  and  in  the  Art  Library 
of  the  same  institution  there  is  a  highly  interesting 

o 


194 


THOMAS  BEWICK, 


[chap. 


volume  containing  thirty  compositions  in  water- 
colour,  of  which  the  majority  were  prepared  for  a 
series  of  "  British  Novelists,"  published  by  Sher- 
wood, Neely,  and  Jones  in  1810-11.  Many  of 
these  lightly -washed,  slightly -worked  sketches 
have  a  freedom  and  certainty  of  handling  which 
were  not  retained  when  they  were  transferred 
to  the  copper,  while  the  situations  selected  are 
often  realised  with  considerable  insight.  It  is 
true  that  they  have  not  the  grace  of  Stothard, 
but  they  have  greater  vigour.  Clennell's  men 
and  women  are  a  "  strong  generation": — in  his 
hands  Tom  Jones  becomes  a  broad-shouldered 
north-country  fox-hunter,  and  Pickle's  Emilia  a 
bouncing  Tyneside  lass.  But  his  designs  have  at 
least  one  advantage,  the  lack  of  which  is  a  com- 
mon charge  against  most  modern  book-illustra- 
tion,— they  generally  tell  a  story  of  some  kind. 
"Trim  in  the  Kitchen  after  Master  Bobby's 
Death,"  from  "  Tristram  Shandy,"  a  subject  which 
has  exercised  almost  as  many  interpreters  with 
the  pencil  as  "Donee  gratus  eram"  has  found 
translators,  is  freshly  treated,  and  can  scarcely  be 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


i95 


said  to  fall  much  behind  Stothard.  This  book  of 
sketches  contains  some  other  drawings, — notably, 
a  spirited  one  of  a  bull-baiting,  and  a  few  biogra- 
phical particulars  of  which  we  shall  hereafter 
make  use. 

In  181 2  Clennell  was  living  at  9  Constitution 
Row,  Gray  s  Inn  Lane  Road,  and  he  exhibited  at  the 
Royal  Academy  a  lively  picture  of  "  Fox-hunters 
Regaling  after  the  Pleasures  of  the  Chase,"  which 
was  engraved  by  his  father-in-law,  and  later,  in 
mezzotint,  by  T.  Lupton.  From  this  time  forth 
he  continued  to  exhibit  drawings  and  paintings 
at  the  Academy,  the  British  Institution,  and  the 
Exhibition  of  Painters  in  Water-Colours  at  the 
"  Great  Room,  Spring  Gardens,"  to  which  last  he 
sent  the  largest  number  of  contributions.  The 
"  Baggage  Waggons  in  a  Thunderstorm,"  ex- 
hibited in  1 81 6  at  the  first-named  place,  and 
"The  Day  after  the  Fair,"  exhibited  in  181 8  at 
the  British  Institution,  are  characteristic  examples 
of  his  work.  Among  the  pictures  which  he  sent 
to  the  water-colour  gallery  were  several  clever 
marine  subjects,  some  fishing  scenes  especially. 


196 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


One  of  these,  the  "  Arrival  of  the  Mackarel- 
Boat,"  is  held  to  be  among  his  best  productions. 
A  few  of  his  sketches,  the  property  of  a  New- 
castle collector,  Mr.  Joseph  Crawhall,  were  ex- 
hibited at  the  Arts  Association  of  that  town  in 
October  1878.  Others  have  been  shown  at  the 
Grosvenor  Gallery  and  elsewhere. 

But  there  are  two  pictures,  not  included  in  the 
above  list,  which  have  special  interest  in  the  story 
of  ClennelFs  career  :  one  was  his  masterpiece  as 
a  painter,  and  the  other  has  a  tragic  connection 
with  the  terrible  misfortune  of  his  later  years. 
In  March  181 5  the  British  Institution  set  apart 
1000  guineas  to  be  awarded  in  premiums  for 
finished  sketches  in  oil  of  subjects  illustrating 
the  British  successes  under  Wellington.  Clennell 
gained  one  of  these  premiums  with  a  contribution,1 
full  of  fire  and  furious .  movement,  representing 
the  decisive  charge  at  Waterloo.  This  was  ex- 
hibited at  the  British  Institution  in  1816.  The 
remaining  picture,  the  "  Banquet  of  the  Allied 

1  Now  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Vaughan,  No.  88  Westbourne 
Terrace. 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


197 


Sovereigns  in  the  Guildhall,"  was  a  commission 
from  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater.  When  Clennell 
set  to  work  upon  this, — which  it  must  be  assumed 
he  did  after  he  had  completed  the  aforementioned 
charge, — having  grouped  and  lighted  his  composi- 
tion, he  took  apartments  in  the  west  end  of  the 
town  (his  latest  residence  appears  to  have  been 
in  Pentonville),  and  waited  patiently  for  the  dis- 
tinguished sitters  who  were  to  grace  his  board. 
But  in  this  part  of  his  task  he  experienced  so 
much  vexation,  suspense,  and  fatigue,  that,  by  the 
time  he  had  obtained  the  necessary  sketches  and 
had  commenced  the  picture  in  earnest,  his  intel- 
lectual powers,  probably  already  strained  to  their 
utmost  by  his  previous  efforts,  seem  to  have 
suddenly  given  way.  This  must  have  been  early 
in  181 7.  The  following  account  of  the  first  indi- 
cations of  his  malady,  as  related  by  one  of  his 
friends,  is  contained  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Chatto, 
first  published  by  him  in  his  "  History  and  Art  of 
Wood-Engraving,"  1848,  p.  22  : —  * 

"  I  regret  to  say  I  was  the  cause  of  the  first 
discovery  of  his  mind  being  affected.  ...  I  was 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


on  very  friendly  terms  with  the  family  of  his 
father-in-law,  Charles  Warren,  the  engraver — as 
fine  a  hearted  man  as  ever  breathed.  I  was  con- 
sequently well  acquainted  with  Clennell,  and  fre- 
quently visited  him  at  his  house  in  Pentonville. 
I  have  sat  for  hours  beside  him  whilst  he  was 
engaged  in  painting  that  fatal  picture.  One  night, 
a  large  party  of  young  folks  had  assembled  at 
Mr.  Warrens, — a  very  frequent  occurrence,  for 
everybody  went  there  when  they  wished  to  be 
happy  ;  and  we  had  spent  a  long  night  in  jun- 
ketting  and  play,  and  games  of  all  sorts,  twirling 
the  trencher,  being,  as  I  well  remember,  one  of 
them  ;  and  at  last  had  gathered  in  a  large  circle 
round  the  fire.  Clennell  was  seated  next  the  fire 
on  one  side,  and  I  sat  next  to  him.  I  had  re- 
marked that  for  at  least  half- an -hour  before  he 
had  been  looking  vacantly  under  the  grate,  paying 
no  attention  to  the  fun  that  was  going  on.  In 
order  to  rouse  him,  I  gave  him  a  hearty  slap  on 
the  thigh,  and  said :  '  Why,  Clennell,  you  are  in 
a  brown  study  V  He  gave  a  faint  laugh  and  said, 
'  Indeed,  I  think  I  am.'    He  did  not,  however, 


XI.] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


199 


become  so  much  roused  as  to  pay  any  attention 
to  the  melde  of  waggery  that  was  going  on.  We 
broke  up  about  one  o'clock  ;  and  on  my  calling  at 
Mr.  Warren's  next  afternoon,  I  was  shocked  to 
hear  from  him  that  he  feared  Clennell's  mind  was 
affected  ;  for  that  about  three  in  the  morning, 
after  having  gone  home  with  his  wife  and  retired 
to  bed,  he  started  up  and  dressed  himself,  telling 
his  wife  that  he  was  going  to  her  fathers  on  a 
very  important  affair.  As  his  wife  could  not  pre- 
vail on  him  to  defer  his  visit  to  a  more  seasonable 
hour,  she  determined  to  accompany  him.  On 
arriving  at  Gray's  Inn  Road,  he  knocked  violently; 
and  on  being  let  in  by  Mr.  Warren,  he  said  that 
he  had  been  grossly  insulted  by  me,  and  that  he 
was  determined  on  having  immediate  satisfaction. 
All  Mr.  Warren's  arguments  as  to  the  impossi- 
bility of  my  having  intended  to  insult  him  were 
met  with  positive  assertions  to  the  contrary.  He 
said  that  he  knew  better ;  '  I  had  been  placed 
next  him  on  purpose,  and  it  was  a  preconcerted 
thing.'  Mr.  Warren  at  last,  seeing  how  it  was 
with  him,  humoured  him  so  far  as  to  say  that  he 


200 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


would  go  with  him,  and  have  an  explanation,  an 
apology,  or  satisfaction !  They  accordingly  set 
out  for  my  house ;  but  Mr.  Warren,  being  now 
quite  sensible  on  the  subject,  instead  of  proceed- 
ing toward  my  house,  took  a  very  different  direc- 
tion, and  led  him  about  till  he  became  tired  :  he 
was  at  that  time  anything  but  strong.  He  also 
by  degrees  quieted  his  mind  towards  me,  by 
speaking  of  my  friendship  for  him  and  my  love  of 
art ;  and  by  daylight  he  got  him  home  and  to 
bed.  I  need  hardly  say  what  exquisite  pain  this 
account  gave  me,  for  I  really  loved  Clennell :  he 
was  always  so  mild,  so  amiable — in  short,  such  a 
good  fellow." 

Shortly  after  this,  becoming  mischievous,  Clen- 
nell was  placed  in  an  asylum  in  London.  Under 
the  pressure  of  misfortune,  his  wife's  mind  also 
gave  way,  and  she  died,  leaving  three  children. 
By  the  exertions  of  Sir  John  Swinburne  (grand- 
father of  the  poet)  and  other  benevolent  persons, 
the  Waterloo  charge  was  engraved,  in  1819,  by 
W.  Bromley.  It  was  published  by  the  Committee 
of  the  Artists'  Fund,  to  which  institution  Clennell 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


20I 


had  belonged,  and  the  proceeds  were  vested  in 
trustees  for  the  benefit  of  himself  and  his  family. 
The  same  body,  says  Pye,  protected  him  to  the  day 
of  his  death,  which  took  place  in  February  1 840. 

During  the  long  period  which  intervened  be- 
tween 181 7  and  1840,  Clennell  never  wholly 
recovered,  though  hopes  appear  to  have  been 
entertained  that  his  reason  might  be  restored. 
For  some  years  he  remained  in  London,  but  he 
was  subsequently  transferred  to  the  care  of  his 
relations  in  the  North.  When  Mackenzie  wrote 
his  "  History  of  Newcastle,"  in  1827,  he  was  living 
in  this  way  at  Tritlington  ;  later,  he  was  at  St. 
Peter's  Quay.  Once  he  called  upon  Bewick  and 
asked  him  for  a  block  to  engrave,  but  when,  to 
humour  him,  he  had  been  supplied  with  one,  his 
efforts  resembled  those  of  an  unskilled  first  be- 
ginner. His  faculty  for  drawing  appears  to  have 
less  declined.  We  have  now  before  us  a  bullfinch 
and  a  group  of  carnations,1  which  he  is  stated  to 

1  For  access  to  these,  and  the  verses  hereafter  printed,  we 
are  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  W.  B.  Scott,  the  painter  and 
poet,  some  of  whose  earlier  years  were  spent  in  Newcastle,  the 
Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of  which  is  embellished  by 


202 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


have  executed  during  his  insanity  ;  and,  except 
that  they  are  slightly  exaggerated  in  size,  the 
handling  is  unfaltering  and  effective.  In  his 
earlier  days  he  had  been  acquainted  with  Burns, 
whose  songs  he  sang ;  and  one  of  the  amusements 
of  his  vacant  hours  consisted  in  composing  strange 
and  half-articulate  fragments  of  verse,  a  few  speci- 
mens of  which  are  reproduced  in  the  "  History  of 
Wood- Engraving."  In  the  "  Athenaeum  "  for 
7th  March  1840,  there  are  three  more, — "  Sole- 
man,"  "A  Floweret,"  and  "  The  Lady  upon  her 
Palfrey  Grey," — and  others  have  been  published 
elsewhere.  The  following,  which,  as  far  as  can  be 
ascertained,  have  not  appeared  in  any  type  save 
that  of  the  rare  leaflet  on  which  they  were  first 
printed,  are  here  given  chiefly  for  that  reason,  and 
not  for  any  special  merit  they  possess  as  poetry  : 


one  of  his  pictures,  "  The  Building  of  the  new  Castle  by  the  son 
of  William  the  Conqueror."  To  his  many  artistic  tastes  Mr. 
Scott  adds  a  love  of  Bewick,  and  he  cherishes  as  a  memento, 
mounted  in  a  cane-head,  the  original  button  engraved  by  Bewick 
as  a  model  for  the  "  Northumberland  Hunt."  It  bears  a  running 
fox,  and  is  inscribed  "Engraved  by  T.  Bewick.  Given  by  him  to 
W.  Losh,  Esq." 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


203 


A  BALLAD. 

The  hill  it  was  high 

As  the  maiden  did  climb, 
And  O  she  wished  for  her  true  love  nigh, 

And  dearly  she  wished  for  the  time 
That  she  might  be  by 
Her  own  true  love  of  the  azure  sky. 
The  hill  it  was  fair, 
And  sweet  was  the  air, 

But  her  true  love  was  not  nigh  ; 
The  cowslips  look  gay, 
Her  love  is  on  his  way, 

And  they  meet  on  the  hill  of  the  sky. 

AN  EPIC  UPON  WINTER. 

In  January  or  November's  cold, 
When  stern  winter  his  sceptre  doth  hold 
By  farm,  or  common  side,  or  village  lane, 
Or  where  the  sturdy  peasant 
Doth  drive  a  drain, 


2o4  THOMAS  BE  WICK.  [chap. 


Cutting  his  way 

Oft  through  the  frozen  clay  ; 

Sometimes  dressing  a  hedge, 

Lopping  away  the  cumbrous  sedge — 

There  the  fendifair,  in  numerous  wing, 

To  taste,  now  fresh,  the  oozing  spring, 

And  flock  in  the  copse  or  on  the  bough, 

In  winter's  merriment  to  dow. 

Perhaps,  near  a  gravel-pit, 

Where  doth  the  swiller  boy 

To  carry  sand  his  time  employ, 

The  little  sandybird  doth  sit 

Upon  a  twig, 

In  expectation  big — 

Or  robin  or  blackbird  in  haste 

The  new  brown  atom  to  taste, 

And  pick  their  welcome  cheer, 

In  winter's  month  so  often  drear. 

To  attach  any  undue  importance  to  these  irregular 
verses  would  be  absurd  ;  but  the  inborn  love  of 
nature  is  still  discernible  in  the  disjointed  imagery 
and  the  poor  rudderless  words.  Both  pieces  bear 
the  authors  initials,  "  L.  C,  "  and  are  dated  from 
"St.  Peters." 

While  at  St.  Peters,  Clennell  appears  to  have 
been  harmless  ;  but  in  183 1  he  again  became  un- 
manageable, and  was  placed  in  an  asylum,  where 
he  remained  until  he  died.    In  1844  a  monumental 


XL] 


LUKE  CLENNELL. 


205 


tablet  by  R.  Davies,  a  local  sculptor,  was  erected  to 
his  memory  in  St.  Andrew's  Church,  Newcastle. 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  the  precise  limits  of 
talents  so  fatally  interrupted,  or  to  decide  definitely 
whether  their  possessor  should  or  should  not  be 
included  among  "  the  inheritors  of  unfulfilled 
renown."  When  attacked  by  his  malady  he  was 
six-and-thirty,  and  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the 
axiom  of  Joseph  de  Maistre  that  "  he  who  has  not 
conquered  at  thirty  will  never  conquer/'  Clennell 
had  already  passed  that  critical  stage.  But  we 
do  not  place  much  faith  in  the  utterance  in  ques- 
tion, and,  setting  speculation  aside,  it  may  fairly 
be  affirmed  of  him  that  he  was,  after  Nesbit,  the 
best  engraver  among  Bewick's  pupils  ;  and  that 
when  his  mind  gave  way  he  was  beginning  to 
show  powers  of  a  higher  kind  as  an  artist,  parti- 
cularly in  the  line  of  landscape  and  rustic  scenes. 
His  distinguishing  qualities  are  breadth,  spirit,  and 
rapidity  of  handling,  rather  than  finish  and  minute- 
ness ;  and  the  former  characteristics  are  usually 
held  to  be  superior  to  the  latter.  His  unfortunate 
story  invests  them  with  an  additional  interest. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

HARVEY,  JACKSON,  ETC. 

William  Harvey,  the  third  of  Bewick's  pupils 
who  attained  to  any  distinction,  is  known  chiefly 
as  a  designer  on  wood,  and  for  a  considerable 
period  held  the  foremost  place  in  the  profession. 
In  these  days,  when  artists  of  this  class  are  so 
numerous,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  one  man 
could  completely  command  the  field  ;  and  yet  it 
seems  certain  that,  about  1830-40,  Harvey  was 
the  sole  person  to  whom  engravers  could  apply 
for  an  original  design  with  security,  and  who  de- 
voted himself  exclusively  to  the  preparation  of 
such  designs.  "  The  history  of  wood-engraving," 
says  a  writer  in  the  "  Art  Union"  for  1839,  "  for 
some  years  past,  is  almost  a  record  of  the  works 
of  his  (Harvey's)  pencil."    It  was  the  custom  to 


part  of  haydon'S  "dentatus." 

(From  Harvey's  Engraving,  1821.) 


chap,  xii.]      HARVEY,  JACKSON,  ETC 


207 


say  that  he  produced  more  than  Stothard  or  Cho- 
dowiecki ;  but  it  would  be  more  appropriate  to 
compare  his  unflagging  fertility  to  that  of  Dore  or 
Gilbert.  He  was  born  at  Westgate,  13th  July 
1796,  his  father  being  keeper  of  the  Newcastle 
Baths.  At  fourteen  he  was  apprenticed  to 
Bewick,  with  whom  he  became  a  great  favourite, 
as  may  be  gathered  from  the  well  -  nigh  par- 
ental letter,  printed  in  Chatto's  Treatise,  which 
Bewick  addressed  to  him  in  1815.  Harvey 
worked  with  Temple,  another  pupil,  upon  the 
"  Fables"  of  181 8,  and,  it  is  alleged,  transferred 
many  of  Johnsons  sketches  to  the  wood.  In 
September  181 7  he  removed  to  London.  Here 
he  studied  drawing  under  B.  R.  Haydon,  and 
anatomy  under  Sir  Charles  Bell.  While  with 
Haydon  (where  he  had  Eastlake,  Lance,  and 
Landseer  for  fellow -pupils),  he  engraved  the 
well-known  block  after  Haydon's  "  Assassination 
of  Dentatus" — that  ambitious  attempt  to  unite 
colour,  expression,  handling,  light,  shadow,  and 
heroic  form,  of  which,  if  report  is  to  be  believed, 
the  proximate  destination  was  a  packing-case  in 


208 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[CHAP. 


Lord  Mulgrave's  stable.  Harvey's  engraving  has 
been  described  as  "  probably  the  largest,  certainly 
the  most  laboured,  block  that  had  then  been  cut 
in  England " ;  but  its  manifest  and  misguided 
rivalry  of  copperplate  makes  it  impossible  to 
praise  it  as  highly  as  its  exceedingly  skilful  tech- 
nique would  seem  to  warrant.    As  a  work  upon 


INITIAL  LETTERS  BY  HARVEY.     (FROM  HENDERSON'S  "  HISTORY  OF  WINES,"  1824.) 


wood  it  must  be  regarded  as  more  ingenious  than 
admirable. 

Towards  1824  Harvey  seems  wholly  to  have 
abandoned  engraving  for  design,  his  decision  in 
this  direction  being  apparently  determined  by  the 
success  of  the  illustrations  he  drew  and  in  part  cut 
for  Henderson's  "  History  of  Ancient  and  Modern 
Wines."   These  are  some  of  his  most  pleasing  per- 


xii.]  HARVEY,  JACKSON,  ETC  209 

formances.  As  engravings  they  are  excellent ;  as 
compositions  they  have  but  little  of  the  unpleasant 
mannerism  which  afterward  grew  upon  him  and 
disfigured  his  later  work.    To  give  aa  account  of 


THE  EGRET.     (FROM  A  DRAWING  BY  HARVEY.) 


his  labours  as  a  designer  subsequent  to  this  time 
would  be  unnecessary  as  well  as  tedious.  About 
1830  he  had  become  prominently  popular  in  this 
way  ;  he  was  at  the  height  of  his  reputation  in 
1840,  and  when  he  died,  six-and-twenty  years 

p 


2  IO 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


later,  his  work  was  still  in  request.  His  designs 
for  the  "  Tower  Menagerie,"  1828;  "  Zoological 
Gardens,"  1830-31;  "  Children  in  the  Wood," 
1 83 1  ;  "  Blind  Beggar  of  Bethnal  Green,"  1832  ; 
"  Story  without  an  End,"  "  Pictorial  Prayer  Book," 


THE  JAGUAR.     (DRAWN  BY  HARVEY  FOR  "  THE  TOWER  MENAGERIE,"  1828.) 


"Bible,"  "  Shakspere," 1  and  a  hundred  other 
issues  from  Charles  Knight's  untiring  press,  attest 
his  industry  and  versatility.  Those  who  desire 
to  study  him  to  advantage,  however,  will  do  so  in 

1  Bogue's  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  engraved  by  the 
Dalziels,  is  also  one  of  Harvey's  better  efforts. 


MAAROOF  BIDDING  FAREWELL  TO  HIS  WIFE. 
(Drawn  by  Harvey  for  Lane's  "Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  1840.) 

To  face  fage  211. 


XII.] 


HARVEY,  JACKSON,  ETC 


2  I 


the  two  series  of  Northcote's  "  Fables,"  1828  and 
1833,  1:0  which  we  have  already  referred  ;  and  in 
Lane's  "  Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  1838-40. 
Northcote,  indeed,  takes  credit  for  the  illustrations 
in  the  former  case  ;  but  from  the  accounts  which 
exist  of  the  way  in  which  he  prepared  the  merely 
indicatory  sketches  that  Harvey  subsequently  ela- 
borated and  transferred  to  the  block,1  and  from 
the  admission  in  the  preface  to  vol.  i.  that  many 
of  the  designs  have   been  "  improved    by  his 

1  "  It  was  by  a  curious  process  that  Mr.  Northcote  really 
made  the  designs  for  those  Fables  the  amusement  of  his  old  age, 
for  his  talents  as  a  draftsman,  excelling  as  he  did  in  Animals,  was 
rarely  required  by  this  undertaking.  His  general  practice  was  to 
collect  great  numbers  of  prints  of  animals,  and  to  cut  them  out  ; 
he  then  moved  such  as  he  selected  about  upon  the  surface  of  a 
piece  of  paper  until  he  had  illustrated  the  fable  by  placing  them 
to  his  satisfaction,  and  had  thus  composed  his  subject,  then  fixing 
the  different  figures  with  paste  to  the  paper,  a  few  pen  or  pencil 
touches  rendered  this  singular  composition  complete  enough  to 
place  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Harvey,  by  whom  it  was  adapted  or 
freely  translated  on  the  blocks  for  the  engravers.  The  designs 
made  by  this  ingenious  mode  are  the  more  curious  as  having  been 
executed  by  a  painter,  whose  masterly  hand  knew  so  well  how  to 
give  that  beauty  of  arrangement  which  makes  them  so  admirable 
and  interesting." — "  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  James  Northcote,  Esq., 
R.A.,"  by  E.  S.  Rogers,  prefixed  to  the  second  series  of  "  Fables," 

1833- 


212 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


(Harvey's)  skill,"  it  is  probable  that  most  of 
the  honours  of  the  undertaking  really  belong  to 
Harvey,  though  he  again,  no  doubt,  profited  in 
some  degree  by  having  Northcote's  first  ideas  to 


THE  GREAT  EAGLE-OWL.     (DRAWN  BY  HARVEY  FOR  "  THE  GARDENS  AND  THE 
MENAGERIE  OF  THE  ZOOLOGICAL  SOCIETY,"  1831.) 


energise  upon.  The  ornamental  letters  and  vig- 
nettes were  entirely  his  own.  Taken  as  a  whole, 
these  two  volumes  are  among  the  most  interesting 
examples  of  woodcut  art  in  England.  They  were  a 
labour  of  love  to  their  projector,  whose  dying  regret 


GARDENS  ON  THE  RIVER  OF  EL-UBULLEH.  Tofacefag 
(Drawn  by  Harvey  for  Lane's  "  Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  1840.) 


XII.] 


HAR  VE  Y,  J  A  CKSON,  ETC. 


213 


it  was  that  he  had  not  lived  to  see  the  publication 
of  the  second  series  ;  and  some  of  the  happiest 
work  of  Nesbit,  Jackson,  Thompson,  and  Williams 
— that  is  to  say,  of  the  most  successful  wood-en- 
gravers of  the  day — is  to  be  found  in  their  pages. 


,1  , 

1      I  : 

IIPS 

1  1 

jjjfj 

I  s 

party  quarrels.    (engraved  by  jackson  for  northcote's 
"fables,"  1833.) 


In  the  "  Arabian  Nights/' which  is  regarded 
as  Harvey's  masterpiece,  he  is  free  from  any 
charges  of  collaboration,  beyond  the  fact  that  he 
worked  under  the  eye  of  Mr.  Lane,  who  assisted 
him  with  minute  indications  of  costume  and  ac- 
cessories.    In  the  life  of  Lane  by  his  nephew, 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


Mr.  Stanley  Lane- Poole,  it  is  stated  that  the 
former  did  not  attach  much  importance  to  these 
pictorial  embellishments,  and  even  thought  that 
they  might  well  be  dispensed  with.  Some  allow- 
ance must  be  made  in  this  case  for  Mr.  Lane's 
unique  position  as  a  critic.  A  Roman  of  the 
time  of  Augustus  would  doubtless  find  anachron- 
isms in  the  works  of  Gerome  ;  and  no  designer 
would  have  been  likely  to  entirely  satisfy  the  in- 
veterate Egyptologist,  who  had  himself  sat  cross- 
legged  in  the  ancient  Arab  city  of  Cairo,  and  who, 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  began  each  day's  task  with  a 
pious  Bismi-llah.  That  Lane's  disciple,  relative, 
and  biographer  should,  under  the  circumstances, 
speak  of  Harvey's  drawings  as  the  "  least  excellent 
part  of  the  book,"  and  damn  them  with  the  faint 
praise  of  "  succeeding  in  some  slight  degree  in 
catching  the  oriental  spirit  of  the  tales,"  is  perhaps 
to  be  anticipated ;  but  the  fact  remains  that  the 
artist  reached  his  highest  point  in  these  volumes, 
and  the  public  of  Charles  Knight's  time  probably 
ranked  them  far  above  the  text  in  importance. 
A  certain  florid  and  luxuriant  facility,  which  in 


THE  SECOND  SHEYKH  RECEIVING  HIS  POOR  BROTHER. 
(Drawn  by  Harvey  for  Lane's  "  Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  1840.) 

To  face  page  215. 


XII.] 


HARVEY,  JACKSON,  ETC 


215 


Harvey's  ordinary  designs  is  monotonous  or  ill- 
timed,  seems  almost  in  keeping  with  Eastern  sub- 
jects, and  many  of  the  headpieces  and  vignettes, 
set  tastefully  in  intricate  arabesques,  and  beauti- 
fully engraved  by  Jackson  and  his  colleagues,  are 
gems  of  refined  and  delicate  invention.  Speaking 
generally,  the  decorative  and  topographical  ex- 
amples, the  glimpses  of  bazaar  and  street,  of 
mosque  and  turreted  gate  and  "  latticed  meshre- 
beeyeh,"  are  superior  to  the  picturesquely  grouped 
but  expressionless  figure  subjects.  In  drawing 
animals,  Harvey  was  often  singularly  fortunate, 
although  here,  as  always,  his  peculiar  mannerism 
mars  his  work. 

At  his  death,  in  1866,  he  was  Bewick's  only 
surviving  pupil.  Beyond  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
thoroughly  amiable  and  unpretentious  man,  and 
an  unwearied  worker,  little  of  interest  has  been 
recorded  respecting  him.  A  new  race  of  draughts- 
men has  sprung  up  since  he  laid  down  the  pencil, 
but  his  name  will  always  deserve  to  be  remem- 
bered in  the  annals  of  his  craft.  He  lies  buried 
in  the  cemetery  at  Richmond. 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


In  addition  to  the  pupils  already  mentioned, 
there  were  a  few  others,  who  either  did  not  attain 
to  celebrity,  or  whose  relationship  to  Bewick  was 
of  a  more  incidental  kind.  Foremost  among 
these  comes  John  Jackson,  who  was  born  at 
Ovingham  in  1801,  and  died  in  1848.  Redgrave 
says  that  he  was  a  pupil  of  Armstrong  (which  is 
indefinite),  and  afterwards  of  Bewick.  With  the 
latter  he  had  some  obscure  disagreement  which 
prematurely  terminated  their  connection,  Bewick, 
it  is  alleged,  going  even  so  far  as  to  cut  his  own 
and  his  son's  names  out  of  the  unexpired  indent- 
ures. Jackson  then  moved  to  London,  and  worked 
for  a  time  under  Harvey,  many  of  whose  designs 
he  subsequently  engraved.  He  either  did,  or 
superintended,  much  of  the  work  on  the  "  Penny 
Magazine"  and  other  of  Charles  Knight's  various 
enterprises  ;  and  between  1830  and  1840  was  the 
busiest  and  best  employed  of  London  wood- 
engravers.1    His  work  for  the  two  series  of  North- 

o 

1  Many  good  examples  of  Jackson's  work  are  to  be  found  in  a 
volume  of  1  50  selected  engravings  from  the  "  Penny  Magazine," 
published  in  1835,  and  referred  to  before  a  Committee  of  the 


XII.] 


HAR  VE  Y,  J  A  CKSQN,  E  TC. 


217 


cote's  "Fables"  and  Lane's  "Arabian  Nights" 
has  already  been  mentioned.  As  an  engraver  he 
was  careful  and  painstaking  without  any  special 
show  of  genius.     His  name  has,  however,  acquired 


THE  FOX,  THE  WEASEL,  AND  THE  RABBIT.     (ENGRAVED  BY  JACKSON 
FOR  NORTHCOTE'S  "  FABLES,"  1828.) 


more  prominence  than  it  perhaps  actually  de- 
serves, from  its  connection  with  a  book  to 
which  we  have  frequently  made  reference,  and 

House  of  Commons  as  illustrating  the  progress  and  advantages 
of  popular  woodcut  art. 


218 


THOMAS  BEWICK. 


[chap. 


to  which  no  student  of  wood-engraving  can  fail 
to  be  indebted,  namely,  the  "Treatise"  on  that 
art,  hitherto  currently  known  as  "  Jackson  and 
Chatto."  When  this  volume  first  appeared  in  1839, 


THE  WOODCOCK.     (ENGRAVED  BY  JACKSON  AFTER  BEWICK'S  CUT.) 

an  angry  controversy  arose  as  to  the  relative  claims 
of  the  engraver  and  his  colleague  to  the  honours  of 
authorship.  We  do  not  propose  to  stir  the  ashes 
of  this  ancient  dispute.  Still,  it  may  be  stated 
that  Mr.  Chatto  appears  to  have  had  but  scant 
justice  done  to  him  in  the  matter,  for,  with  a  few 


XII.] 


HARVEY,  JACKSON,  ETC 


219 


reservations,  the  composition  and  preparation  of 
the  book  were  entirely  his.  Indeed,  Jackson  was 
in  no  sense  "literary,"  and  could  not  possibly 
have  undertaken  it  ;  and  although  he  provided 
and  paid  for  the  illustrations,  the  attributing  of 
them  en  masse  to  him  personally  is  manifestly  an 


THE  PARTRIDGE.     (ENGRAVED  BY  JACKSON  AFTER  BEWICK'S  CUT.) 


error,  as  the  major  part  of  the  facsimiles  of  old 
woodcuts  were  the  work  of  the  late  Mr.  Fairholt, 
and  were  chiefly  engraved  by  a  young  pupil  of 
Jackson's  named  Stephen  Rimbault.  Others  were 
executed  by  J.  W.  Whymper.  Of  the  blocks 
actually  from  the  graver  of  Jackson  himself,  the 
best  are  the  "Partridge"  and  the  "Woodcock" 


220 


THOMAS  BE  WICK. 


[chap. 


after  Bewick,  which  are  favourable  specimens  of 
his  powers.  Jackson's  true  position  with  regard 
to  the  whole  book  seems  to  have  been  rather  that 
of  projector  than  of  author ;  and  it  is  satisfactory 
to  know  that  in  the  third  edition,  which  has  been 


the  vain  butterfly.   (engraved  by  landells  for  northcote's 
"fables,"  1833.) 


recently  issued,  due  prominence  has  been  given  on 
the  title-page  to  the  hitherto  insufficiently  recog- 
nised labours  of  Mr.  Chatto. 

With  the  exception  of  Ebenezer  Landells,  the 
remaining  pupils  of  Bewick  are  little  more  than 
names.  Landells  was  an  excellent  engraver,  who 
did  good  work  on  the  "  Illustrated  London  News  " 


XII.] 


HARVEY,  JACKSON,  ETC 


221 


and  "  Punch,"  and  succeeded  admirably  in  render- 
ing the  animals  of  Thomas  Landseer.  He  died 
in  i860."  Hole,  already  referred  to  in  connection 
with  Ackermann's  "  Religious  Emblems,"  and 
whose  full  name  was  Henry  Fulke  Plantagenet 
Woolicombe  Hole,  was  the  son  of  a  captain  in  the 
Lancashire  militia.  He  practised  as  an  engraver 
at  Liverpool,  but  ultimately  gave  up  the  profession 
on  succeeding  to  an  estate  in  Devonshire.  He 
did  some  of  the  cuts  in  the  "  British  Birds,"  and 
a  much-lauded  vignette  to  Shepherd's  "  Poggio." 
W.  W.  Temple,  who  assisted  Harvey  in  "  Bewick's 
Fables"  of  181 8,  became  a  draper  at  the  end  of 
his  apprenticeship.  Henry  White,  who  engraved 
Thurston's  designs  to  Burns,  as  well  as  many  of 
Cruikshank's  squibs  for  Hone,  and  some  of  the 
best  of  the  cuts  in  Yarrell's  "  Fishes,"  was  an  ex- 
ceedingly clever  workman.  Of  John  Johnson, 
Robert  Johnson's  cousin,  who  designed  the  cut 
of  the  "  Hermit"  in  Goldsmith's  and  Parnell's 
"  Poems,"  we  have  no  material  particulars.  Isaac 
Nicholson,  Anderson,  Edward  Willis,  and  the  rest, 
may  be  dismissed  without  further  mention. 


TAILPIECE.     (FROM  NORTHCOTE's  "  FABLES,"  1828.) 


APPENDIX. 


List  of  the  oil-paintings,  water-colour  drawings,  prints,  etc., 
presented  by  the  Executors  of  Miss  Isabella  Bewick  to  the 
Museum  of  the  Natural  History  Society  of  Northumberland, 
Durham,  and  Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  in  March  1884  : — 

Portrait  of  Thomas  Bewick,  by  J.  Ramsay,  oil-painting. 
Do.  do.  T.  S.  Good,  oil-painting. 

Do.  do.  Miss  Kirkley. 

Do.  do.  Miniature  by  Murphy. 

Do.  do.  do.      by  Plymer. 

Do.    Miniature  of  Moses  Griffith,  friend  of  Tennant. 
Do.    of  John  Bewick,  by  George  Gray,  crayon. 
Do.    of  Robert  E.  Bewick  when  a  boy,  by  John  Bell,  oil- 
painting. 

Drawings. 

1 2  Small  coloured  drawings  of  foreign  birds,  unmounted. 

1  Sketch  of  horse  in  crayons,  by  John  Bewick. 

89  Coloured  drawings  of  Wycliffe  birds,  nearly  all  foreign, 
mounted  on  ten  sheets,  and  numbered  1,  2,  3,  5,  7, 
8,  9,  10,  11,  12. 


224 


APPENDIX. 


12  Coloured  drawings  of  birds,  mounted  on  six  sheets  by 
Rev.  C.  Kingsley : — Roller,  nutcracker,  great  spotted 
woodpecker,  chough,  red-backed  shrike,  cuckoo,  bunt- 
ing, ptarmigan,  jackdaw,  hooded  crow,  turtle-dove, 
and  pied  flycatcher. 

2  Drawings,  mounted  by  Ruskin,  on  one  sheet : — Wren 
coloured,  and  vignette  in  pencil. 

46  Drawings  of  water  birds,  mounted  on  four  sheets,  num- 
bered 3,  s,  6,  7. 

Sheet  3.  Olivaceous  gallinule,  water  hen,  head  of 
razorbill,  little  grebe,  great  crested  grebe,  great 
auk,  do.  do.,  Sclavonian  grebe,  red-throated 
diver,  black  guillemot,  great  Northern  diver  (all 
coloured). 

Sheet  5.  Goosander,  merganser,  smew,  red-breasted 
goose,  eider  duck,  brent  goose,  bean  goose,  eider 
duck  (coloured)  and  goosander,  wild  swan,  mute 
swan,  do.  do.  (in  pencil). 

Sheet  6.  Wigeon,  golden  eye,  sheldrake,  cormorant, 
long-tailed  duck,  tufted  duck,  golden  eye,  gar- 
ganey,  gannet  (coloured),  pintail,  and  castaneous 
duck  (in  pencil). 

Sheet  7,  Scoter  (coloured)  and  cormorant  (young), 
gannet,  olivaceous  gallinule,  and  eight  portions 
of  birds  (in  pencil). 

35  Drawings  mounted  on  nine  sheets,  A  to  I  inclusive. 

Sheet  A.  Great  plover,  greenshank  (coloured),  and 

goshawk  (in  pencil). 
Sheet  B.  Crossbill  (red  plumage),  whinchat,  yellow 

wagtail  (coloured),  and  little  stint  (in  pencil). 


APPENDIX. 


225 


Sheet  C.  Capercailzie,  night  heron,  and  two  vig- 
nettes (coloured). 

Sheet  D.  Foreign  lark,  green  woodpecker,  a  spotted 
crake,  nightingale  (coloured). 

Sheet  E.  Redwing,  great  black-backed  gull  (young), 
black-headed  gull  (immature),  red-necked  phala- 
rope  (coloured). 

Sheet  F.  Reed  fauvette,  ash-coloured  sandpiper, 
wryneck,  snipe  (coloured). 

Sheet  G.  Dunlin,  long-tailed  tit,  goldfinch  (coloured), 
and  jacana-like  bird,  and  peacock  (in  pencil). 

Sheet  H.  4  Vignettes  (coloured). 

Sheet  I.    3      Do.  do.  % 

68  Drawings  in  pencil,  mounted  on  three  sheets,  numbered 

10,  IT,  12. 

Sheet  10.  Barnacle  goose,  spurwinged  goose,  gad- 
wall,  wild  duck,  brent  goose,  Egyptian  goose, 
Muscovy  duck,  king  duck,  cravat  goose,  shoveler, 
white-fronted  goose,  scaup  duck,  garganey,  Egyp- 
tian goose,  harlequin  duck,  bimaculated  duck. 

Sheet  11.  23  Vignettes  in  pencil. 

Sheet  12.  29      Do.  do. 

25  Sketches  in  pencil,  mounted  on  three  sheets  of  tinted 
paper,  numbered  13,  14,  15. 
Sheet  13  contains  9  sketches. 
,,14      „       8  do. 
,,15      „       8  do. 

14  Slight  sketches  of  animals  in  pencil. 
10  Slight  sketches  of  animals  in  pencil. 

Q 


226 


APPENDIX. 


14  Drawings  of  birds  in  colours  : — 

Great  bittern,  sparrow  hawk,  red-necked  grebe,  mag- 
pie, Pennant's  parrot,  pied  wagtail,  common  fowl, 
waxwing,  kestrel,  golden  plover,  red  phalarope, 
dipper,  red-throated  diver,  nightjar. 

Drawing — Whitley  ox. 

Slight  pencil  sketch,  called  Chillingham  Bull. 

Pidcock's  elephant  in  pencil. 

Sketch  of  sheep  in  pencil. 

Horse  and  groom  in  pencil. 

Whitley  ox  in  Indian  ink. 

Spotted  hyena  in  pencil. 

255  Slight  drawings  by  Thomas,  John,  and  Robert  Bewick. 
A  set  of  the  cuts  of  the  quadrupeds  coloured  by  Bewick 
for  his  children,  bound. 

1 1  Engraved  portraits  of  Thomas  Bewick. 

4  Vignettes  in  frame,  water-colours. 

Man  with  leister,  rock  with  stone  monument,  man  and 
dog  at  park  gates,  men  carrying  large  tub. 

4  Do.  do.  Cottage  in  winter,  wrreck  of  boat  lying  on 
shore,  monumental  stone  and  figures,  dog  and  hen 
and  chickens. 

Framed.  Pennant's  short-eared  owl,  water-colour. 

Do.  Spearman's  kyloe  ox,  do. 

Do.  Ox  grazing,  do. 

Do.  Chillingham  bull,  proof  on  vellum,  with  border,  in 
first  state. 

Do.  Trotting  horse,  lithographed  by  Thomas  Bewick. 

Do.  Waiting  for  death,  proof  on  vellum. 

Do.  Lion,  done  for  Pidcock. 


APPENDIX. 


227 


Framed.    Elephant,  done  for  Pidcock. 

Do.      Whitley  ox,  drawn  and  engraved  on  copper  by 

Thomas  Bewick,  1789. 
Do.      Old  horse,  small  copperplate,  by  T.  Bewick. 
Do.      Huntsman  and  hound,  woodcut. 
Do.      Ramsay's  portrait  of  T.  B.,  engraved  by  Burnet. 

Wood  Engravings. 

Prints  of  quadrupeds,  land  and  water  birds,  foreign  birds, 
British  fishes,  vignettes,  prints  for  "  Fables  of  ^Esop," 
"Select  Fables,"  etc.,  amounting  to  about  2445  examples. 

Baily's  bust  of  Bewick  in  plaster,  and  pedestal. 


t 

TAILPIECE.     (FROM  NORTHCOTE's  "  FABLES,"  1828.) 


INDEX. 


[The  dates  given,  with  few  exceptions,  are  those  of  the  first  editions.} 


Addison,  Joseph,  34. 
Anderson,  221. 
Angus,  Thomas,  39. 
Artist's  Assistant,  1788,  I. 
Artists'  Fund,  200. 
"  Assassination  of  Dentatus,"  207. 
Atkinson's  Memoir  of  Bewick,  7, 
157. 

Audubon's   Ornithological  Biogra- 
phy, 159-63. 

Bailes,  Dr.,  33. 
Baily,  E.  H.,  R.A.,  169. 
"Banquet  of  Allied  Sovereigns," 

Clennell's,  196. 
Barlow's  Fables  of  JEsop,  1665,  61. 
Barnes,  Mr.  J.  W.,  19. 
Beattie's  Minstrel,  1807,  189. 
Beilby,  Ralph,  24. 
Beilby's  shop,  27. 
Bell,  William,  125. 
Bell's  Catalogue,  185 1,  7,  31. 
Belon's  Histoire  des  Oyseaux,  1555, 

96. 

Bennett,  C.  H.,  138. 
Bewick,  Isabella,  166,  167. 
Bewick,  Jane,  32,  124,  166. 
Bewick,  John,  senior,  11. 


Bewick,  John,  junior,  9,  70-86, 
139. 

Bewick,  R.  E.,  135,  165. 
Bewick,  Thomas,  1-170,  171. 
Bewick's  Memoir,  1862,  7. 
Bewick's  wife,  163. 
Bewick,  Will,  21. 

Bewick,  William,    of  Darlington, 
125. 

Birds,  Land  and  Water,  1797- 1 804, 
95-106. 

Blind  Beggar  of  Betlnial  Green, 

1832,  210. 
Bloomfield's  Farmer's  Boy,  1800, 

178. 

Blossoms  of  Morality,  1796,  78. 
Branston,  J.,  180. 

British     Novelists  (Sherwood's), 

1810-11,  194. 
Brockett,  J.  T.,  134. 
Brown,  Tom,  16. 
Bulmer,  William,  78,  143. 
Burns's  Poems,  1808,  134. 
Butler's  Hudibras,  181 1,  183. 

Carnan,  T.,  51. 
Carr,  Robert,  126. 
Charnley,  Emerson,  70. 


230 


INDEX. 


Chatto's  History  cuid  Art  of  Wood- 
Engraving,  1848,  197. 

Chatto's  Treatise  on  Wood-Engrav- 
ing, 1839,  7,  218-20. 

Cherryburn  House,  9. 

Children  in  the  Wood,  1 83 1,  210. 

Child's  Tutor,  1772,  31. 

Children's  Miscellany,  1787,  72. 

Clennell,  Luke,  129,  134,  145, 
186-205. 

* '  Cock"  Billhead,  30. 

Cole,  B„  43- 

Coleman,  William,  5,  43. 

Comenius's  Orbis  Pictus,  77. 

Copeland's  Ornaments  >  28. 

Cornaro,  Lewis,  34. 

Cotes,  Rev.  Mr.,  100. 

Craig,  W.  M.,  177. 

Craig's  Scripture  Illustrated,  1806, 
178,  188. 

Crawhall,  Mr.  Joseph,  196. 

CroxalPs  Fables  of  ALsop,  1722,  2, 
60,  135. 

Death's  Dance,  1789,  73. 
Dovaston,  J.  F.  M.,  106,  143. 

Elliot,  Isabella,  48. 
Emblems  of  Mortality,  1789,  73. 

Fables  of  jEsop,  1818,  134-42,  207. 
Fairholt,  F.  W.,  174,  219. 
Falconer's  Shipwreck,  1808,  189. 
Ferguson's  Poems,  1 8 14,  134. 
Fielding's  Jacobite's Journal,  174.7,  2- 
Fishes,  History  of  British,  151,  165. 
Ford,  Mr.  Edward,  51,  127. 
Ford,  Mr.  J.  W.,  127. 
Ford,  Mrs.  127. 
Forster,  Thomas,  23. 


Forth,  Bewick's  house  in  the,  48. 

Garret,  W.,  32. 

Gay's  Fables,  1779,  33,  52-6. 

Gay's  Fables,  1788,  73. 

"  George  and  Dragon  "  Billhead,  30. 

Goldsmith    and   Parfiell's  Poems, 

1795.  78,  168,  176. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  51. 
Good,  T.  S.,  161. 
Gravelot,  H.,  54. 
Gray,  George,  37. 
Gray,  Gilbert,  36. 
Gray,  William,  37,  42. 
Gregson,  Rev.  Christopher,  12. 

Hancock,  Mr.  John,  102. 
Harvey,  William,  7,  134,  135, 
206-15. 

Hawkins's  Histo?y  of  Mtisic,  5. 
Haydon,  B.  R.,  207. 
Henderson's  History  of  Wines,  1824, 
208. 

Hie roglyphick  Bible,  1776,  51. 
"  Highland  Society's  Diploma,"  191. 
History  of  a  Schoolboy,  1788,  72. 
History  of  England   (Wallis  and 

Scholey's),  178,  188. 
Hive,  The,  1806,  134,  168,  187. 
Hodgson,  Thomas,  5. 
Hogarth's  Four  Stages  of  Cruelty,  2. 
Holbein's  Imagines  Mortis,  1 547,  73. 
Hole,  H.  F.  P.  W.,  221. 
Honours  of  the  Table,  1 788,  72« 
Horn  Book,  The  new  invented,  31. 
"  Hound,  The  Old,"  53. 
Hugo's  Bewick  Collector,  1866-68, 

6,  133. 
Hunt,  William,  98. 
Hutton,  Dr.,  29,  48. 


INDEX. 


231 


Hutton's  Treatise  on  Mensuration^ 
1770,  29. 

Illustrated  London  Nezus,  1842,  220. 

Jackson,  John,  7,  128,  136,  216-20. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  117. 
Johnson,  John,  79,  221. 
Johnson  Robert,  129,  130-2,  136, 
176,  207. 

Kent,  William,  54. 
Kirkall,  E.,  60. 

Ladies'  Diary \  1704,  29. 

Landells,  E.,  220. 

Lane's  Thousand  and  One  Nights, 

1840,  211,  213-5. 
Le  Clerc,  Sebastian,  61. 
Le  Grand's  Fabliaux,  IJ96,  80. 
Leslie,  Mr.  G.  D.,  R.A.,  99. 
Liddell,  Anthony,  22. 
Lilliputian  Magazine,  1772,  51. 
Linton,  Mr.  W.  J.,  134. 
Looki?ig- Glass  for  the  Mind,  1792, 

78. 

Lutzelburger,  Hans,  76. 

Mackenzie's  Nezvcastle,  1827,  71. 
Mackenzie's  Northumberland,  1825, 
71. 

Moral  Instructions  of  a  Father  to 
his  Son,  1772,  32. 

Nesbit,  Charlton,  132,  134,  171- 
185. 

"  Newcastle  Natural  History  So- 
ciety," 167,  223. 

New  Lottery  Book  oj  Birds  and 
Beasts,  1771,  31. 


Nicholson,  Isaac,  134,  221. 
Northcote's  Fables,  1828-33,  171, 

180,  183,  211. 
Northumberland  small-pipes,  39. 

Ovingham  Church,  ii. 

Papillon's  Traite  de  la  Gravure  en 

Bois,  1766,  5. 
Penny  Magazine,  1832,  173,  216. 
Pictorial  Prayer  Book,  210. 
Pidcock,  Gilbert,  93. 
Progress  of  Alan  and  Society,  179 1, 

77- 

Proverbs  Exemplified,  1 790,  77. 
Punch,  1842,  221. 

Quadrupeds,    General  History  of, 
1790,  89,  92-4. 

Religious  Emblems  (Ackermann's), 

1809,  178,  221. 
Rimbault,  Stephen,  219. 
Rogers's  Pleasures  of  Memory,  1 8 10, 

144,  192. 
Ruskin's  Ariadne  Florentiita,  139. 
Robin  Hood,  1795,  78. 
Robinson,  Mr.  R.,  27,  92,  156,  168. 
Robinson  Crusoe,  The  New,  1 788, 

72. 

Saint,  Thomas,  31. 
Saturday  Magazi7ie,  1 832,  173. 
Savage's  Hints  on  Decorative  Print- 
ing, 1822,  180. 
Scott,  Mr.  W.  B.,  201. 
Scott's  Border  Antiquities,  1 93. 
Select  Fables,  1776,  32,  57. 
Select  Fables,  1784,  52,  57-67. 
Select  Fables  (Charnley's),  1820,  134. 


232 


INDEX. 


Select  Fables  (Reprint),  1871,  31. 
4 '  Society  for  Diffusion  of  Useful 

Knowledge,"  173. 
Somervile's   Chase ,   1796,  80,  81, 

168. 

"  Spearman's  Kyloe  Ox,"  94. 
Spence,  Thomas,  35. 
Sport sniari s  Friend,  1 80 1,  168. 
Stephens,  Mr.  F.  G.,  98. 
Stephenson,  George,  127. 
Stevens's  Lecture  on  Heads,  184. 
Story  without  an  End,  210. 

Tailpieces,  The,  108-32. 
Tales  for  Youth,  1794,  78. 
Taylor,  Isaac,  43. 
Temple,  W.  W.,  135,  221. 
Thomson's  Life  and  Works  of  Bezvick, 

1882,  91. 
Thomson's  Seasons,  1805,  134. 
Thurston,  John,  134,  177. 
Tommy  Trip's  History  of  Beasts  and 

Birds,  1779,  50. 


Tower  Menagerie,  1828,  210. 
Tresham,  Henry,  R.A.,  179. 
Trusler,  Dr.,  77. 
Tunstall,  Marmaduke,  89. 
Type-Metal,  Engraving  on,  5,  62-3. 

"Waiting  for  Death,"  152-6. 

Walpole,  Horace,  4. 

"  Waterloo   Charge  "  (Clennell's), 

196,  200. 
White,  Henry,  134,  221. 
White,  John,  15,  31. 
Whitfield,  Joseph,  130. 
"  Whitley  Large  Ox,"  94. 
Whymper,  J.  W.,  219. 
Willis,  Edward,  127,  128,  221. 
Wootton,  54. 

YoutJCs  Lnstructive  and  Entertain- 
ing Story  Teller,  17 14,  32. 

Zoological  Gardens,  1830-31,  210. 


THE  END. 


Printed  by  R.  &  R.  Clark,  Edinburgh, 


NEW  EDITION 

OF 

BEWICK'S  WORKS. 

Messrs.  R.  Ward  &  Sons,  of  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  the 
present  possessors  of  the  original  wood-blocks,  are  about 
to  issue  a  New  Edition  of  Bewick's  chief  works  in  Five 
Volumes,  as  follows  : — 

Vol.  I.  Land  Birds. 

Vol.  II.  Water  Birds. 

Vol.  III.  Quadrupeds. 

Vol.  IV.  Fables  of  ^Esop. 

Vol.  V.  Memoir  of  Bewick,  by  Himself. 

The  last  volume  will  be  prefaced  and  annotated  by 
Mr.  Austin  Dobson,  in  whose  hands  Bewick's  papers  and 
correspondence,  together  with  the  MS.  of  the  "  Memoir,'7 
have  been  placed  by  the  Executors  of  the  late  Miss 
Isabella  Bewick.  The  "  Memoir,"  which  was  considerably 
"edited"  by  Miss  Jane  Bewick  in  1862,  will  now  be 
printed  more  fully  and  completely. 

Vol.  I.  (Land  Birds)  will  be  issued  to  subscribers  in 
1885.  Prospectus  and  full  particulars  can  be  obtained  of 
the  publisher,  Mr.  Bernard  Quaritch,  i  5  Piccadilly,  W. 


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